No Trout For Anyone!
by FatGnat
Summary: An 18-wheeler knocks Derek around, giving him both frontal lobe damage and memory loss. AU, set after "Oh, the Guilt!" in season 3.
1. Chapter 1

She'd been fucking Mark like a rabid squirrel when she'd gotten the call. The call to let her know she was needed at the hospital because she still held Derek's medical proxy. Derek who'd been in a car accident when the rain and a truck had seemingly teamed up to beat the crap out of him. And, they had. It had been touch and go for a while, but three weeks later, he stubbornly clung on, even if he wasn't conscious. The neurosurgeon had sustained a traumatic brain injury and as irony, or possibly karma had it, he could have used his own golden touch in the operating room.

Addison still hadn't been to see him.

She got regular updates on Derek's condition and pored over his medical records several times every day, but somehow her legs would not carry her to his room. Well, technically, she'd get as far as the nurse's station outside, where she'd pull up his charts and and turn her back on the door that hid her from his view. Not that he could actually see her, being in a coma, but the last words he'd said to her, "I want never to see you again," still reverberated in her mind. Maybe he'd sense she was there and... not wake up because he'd rather die than face her.

It wasn't precisely a rational thought, but Addison had run straight past calm, cool and collected without stopping that night when she'd gotten to the hospital. She'd rushed through the entrance to the ER and been faced with a wild-eyed Meredith Grey who was shrieking at such a high pitch that Addison couldn't make out anything she was saying. 'Derek's dead' was all she could think and before she could help herself, she was slapping the slutty intern until she was forcibly pulled away from her. Anything to shut up the noise. Shut off the pain.

It hadn't been her finest hour and Addison also knew that Meredith spent as much of her time as possible with Derek now. To add insult to injury, she'd had to okay the intern's presence in the ICU and Addison didn't want her emotions to overwhelm her in front of her ex-husband's girlfriend again. There had been enough times that she'd humiliated herself because she loved a man who loved someone else. No one and especially not Meredith, needed to know that she still wasn't over Derek. So, she stayed at least ten feet away from Derek Shepherd's hospital room.

Today, the situation had changed. Derek was awake. Awake and asking for her... and Richard had told her other things too because Addison could see his mouth moving, but she hadn't heard any of it. After he'd said Derek wanted to see her, there was a weird buzzing noise in her ears. They'd been worried about the extent of the tissue damage, but he was alert and speaking which made the prognosis infinitely better.

But, it also meant she had to brave that door which had protected her from the hurt and reproach in his eyes, and Addison really wasn't too sure that her legs weren't going to go wet noodle on her if she tried to stand up right at that moment.

She had approached his room half a dozen times in the last forty minutes, every time with the intention of going in and talking to her ex-husband. It was the least she could do, after everything that had happened between them. The last time she'd seen him, she had told him that she'd stayed with Mark after he left. She would never forget the expression on his face and she was terrified of going into his room and seeing him look that way at her again.

Okay. She was going to see Derek for real this time. He was in the hospital, he'd almost died, and even though she wasn't his wife any longer, she had been last month and eleven years of marriage counted for something. Derek wanted to see her and she'd never been someone who let fear run her life. She would go into that room, talk to Derek and find out what he wanted from her, and then figure out where to go from there.

Yes, that was a good plan. Addison drew a deep breath and strode purposefully down the hallway toward Derek's room. Her stride began to slow as she approached the nurse's station, and she was so very tempted to delay her visit by double checking Derek's chart for any new information. She hadn't read it this morning, and perhaps it would be best if she knew everything before seeing him?

No, she was done procrastinating, Addison decided, pushing herself on, past the nurse's station. It had already been almost an hour since Richard had told her Derek was awake, and as much as she was afraid to do this, the not knowing would drive her crazy. She hesitated once more, briefly, at the door, but shook off her nerves and stepped into the room.

He was bald and looked oddly vulnerable that way, with a bandaged head and a bruised face that was turning greenish yellow. Addison stopped. She wasn't at all prepared to see this, not yet, but it was too late to run away. Too late because Derek had seen her. He'd seen her and he was smiling. He was smiling. He wasn't scowling at her, like he'd done ever since she first got to Seattle.

"Addison!"

His arm reached out toward her and somehow Addison found her feet moving her to his bedside without her directing them to get any closer. She had no idea what this meant. Derek had been angry with her -- so, so angry -- the last time they'd talked and now he grasped her hand, entwining their fingers.

"They tried to deceive me, telling me years have passed and we're divorced. That mangy looking girl probably stole my wedding band because I can't find it." He looked cranky and Addison had no idea what he was talking about. "Addie, where's my ring?" Derek thumbed the empty area, wriggling his fingers in front of his face, looking up at her with a beseeching expression that was about three quarter panic.

She sank down on the bed. "Derek...?"

He'd gotten red-rimmed eyes, the way he always did when he was about to cry and tried not to give in to the impulse. His distress was almost tangible, wrapping around her, drawing her in and holding her close. Something was terribly wrong and Addison wanted to comfort him and struggle against the suffocating pressure all at once. She could hear his pulse -- or was it her guilt? -- like the tell-tale heart beating under the floorboards, in her ears, raising the hair on her neck.

"Richard and that 12-year old, they said I have amnesia. That I," he swallowed hard, "I don't love you anymore." Derek started crying then, trying to brush his tears away with his free hand, and looking so very lost. "How could I ever stop loving you? You're my best friend and the love of my life."

Addison swallowed past the unexpected lump in her throat as she held onto his hand, unsure of what to do. She still had feelings for Derek, he was looking at her in a way that he hadn't for years, and she had to remind herself about how everything had ended, how Derek stopped coming home from work and how she'd turned to Mark instead. She made herself think about living in that damn trailer and watching her husband moon after another woman, and how she'd come home from the prom to find Meredith Grey's panties in the pocket of Derek's jacket.

She wasn't looking for a reconciliation with Derek. There had been too much hurt and pain on both sides, and what she needed was a chance to lick her wounds and let herself heal. They both needed that, because all they'd done these last few years was make each other miserable. How was she supposed to tell him that, though? Derek was holding her hand and looking at her in the way he used to, like she was the only person in the world. She had crushed him once when she'd slept with Mark, and now she was going to have to do it again.

He was still crying, furiously swiping at his tears with the back of his hand. She reached over to the nightstand for the box of tissues and brought it back to the bed, handing a few to Derek for him to wipe his face. She continued holding his other hand in hers, squeezing it every so often and gradually, he stopped crying and calmed down.

"Derek." Her voice came out quivery and she stopped, taking a few breaths to make sure this would come out in the way she wanted it. "Richard's right, Derek. You sustained a traumatic brain injury, and you have some memory loss." She tried to remember what else had been written in his chart and wished she'd paid more attention to what Richard had been saying when he'd talked to her earlier. "You're not in New York, Derek, and..." she made herself say it, "and we're not married anymore."


	2. Chapter 2

Addison felt her legs give way as the door closed behind her and then arms rushing to buffer her. Being banished from Derek's sight was becoming a recurring feature of her life, so she really should be handling it better by now. It was just the way he closed off, his face going hard and his eyes cruel -- a different man from the one she'd loved and married, a Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll, which still smarted when she admitted that 11 years worth of love and affection didn't vanish just because she wanted it.

"I was just coming to see how you're doing. It seems like I'm in the nick of time." The throaty, yet melodious voice registered as belonging to Helen Crawford, Derek's colleague from back in NY and the surgeon who'd saved him three weeks ago. "Let's sit down, you're an awful lot taller than I am, sweetheart."

She nodded. That was the most she could manage. Addison felt kind of faint and dizzy and a bit queasy too. She hadn't eaten any breakfast and then she'd been in surgery all morning, before Richard had showed up, giving her the news that Derek was asking for her. That had made her too nervous to eat.

The hands assisted her down to the floor and took her wrist, feeling for her pulse. "Dr. O'Malley, why don't you go get Dr. Shepherd a glass of water?"

"Um. He looks like he's doing fine-- Oh, you mean... The ex-Shepherd needs water."

The voices sounded far off and the background noises were muffled. Addison wanted... she didn't know what she wanted. Her hair was brushed back by soothing hands. "You'd worry me a lot less, if we could get some color back into your face." She felt so lethargic.

Concerned amber eyes regarded her when she managed to make eye contact. "Derek..." Addison started weakly, not knowing where she was going past the name of her ex-husband.

"I know, sweetheart. Take deep breaths for me," Helen's hand slowly stroked along her back. "I'm going in to assess when you feel better and then we'll figure out where to go from there. Okay?"

Addison nodded. Helen Crawford was an impressive neurosurgeon, a formidable woman who was all too familiar with the personal side of recovery from craniotomy. She'd been through numerous surgeries herself due to her tumor and Addison felt safe to hand over the task of worrying about Derek for a while. It really wasn't her job anymore, not since Derek had cut her out of his life and now, he was awake and could fend for himself once more.

She drew in a deep breath, holding it for several seconds before exhaling slowly. Getting herself worked up wasn't going to do any good. She tried not to think about the look on Derek's face when she'd told him about her affair with Mark, and how she'd seen him shut down and close himself off from her when she gave him the necessary information. The aftermath of her infidelity had been painful enough the first time and she didn't relish the thought of having to relive it.

Slowly, her heart rate began to slow and the numbness started to wear off. Addison sighed and managed a small smile for the neurosurgeon, who had taken a seat beside her and was holding her hand in hers. "Thanks, Helen. I'm okay now -- I think it just all hit me at once."

"It's a lot to deal with," Helen agreed, her brown eyes still betraying a good deal of worry. "You've had a rough three weeks and today was a lot to take in."

Addison nodded dumbly, feeling slightly better but still plenty sad and guilty. Derek's angry shouts were still ringing in her head, ordering her to leave the room because he couldn't stand to look at her. "I can't look at you," he'd told her the first time, after he'd caught her with his best friend on his favorite sheets. "I want never to see you again," he'd said after she'd confessed to staying with Mark after he'd left. She would get through this -- she always did -- but right now, she didn't know how.

"There you go, Dr. Montgomery, one glass of water." George O'Malley pushed the cup into Addison's hands so eagerly it nearly spilled on her. "With ice! I--I got ice for you."

Helen raised an eyebrow. "That was very thoughtful of you, O'Malley."

Addison could see that the other woman wanted to laugh but was trying to spare him the indignity and so, she smiled at both of them, for coming to her rescue and took a sip from her water. She really did feel parched now that she took a moment to feel her body's warning signals. Letting her ex-husband turn her day, and her life, upside down wasn't a sign that she was moving on and she needed to do that, had to put more effort into her new existence.

"I need to get back to my service." Addison sighed and started to get back up on her feet. "The babies don't care that Derek joined the conscious today."

O'Malley reached for her arm, helping her rise. "I could-- I could walk you up there, to your floor." He looked awkward. "In case you feel faint again. You probably shouldn't... shouldn't be alone."

Now, Addison wanted to laugh, but it was sweet of him to offer. Very gentlemanly. "Thank you, George, but I'll be okay and the hospital is filled with doctors." She touched his arm to take the sting out of her words.

"Don't forget about dinner tonight, Addison," Helen reminded her and smiled impishly. "Derek waking up doesn't change that we've had a lousy three weeks and deserve a night out."

She'd missed Helen. Addison hadn't really realized until now that Derek's partner in crime had been a large part of her life too. In New York, things had been strained after Derek left, but the older woman was too much of a class act to reveal her thoughts on Addison's bed-hopping.

And, oh joy, she had to call the Shepherds again and update everybody on Derek's condition. There was something to which to look forward. Mother was still hoping for a reconciliation and her sisters-in-law seemed various degrees of stunned at the news of the divorce. Addison had had to be the one to break it to them, since Derek got into his accident right after the papers were finalized, in the very same conversation when she told them that Derek had been injured and the outcome was uncertain.

"Uh, maybe I should go check on Dr. Shepherd," O'Malley suggested, his demeanor reminding Addison of an overly eager puppy. "I mean, the other Dr. Shepherd, not you, Dr. Montgomery. He might, uh, he might want some water too."

"I'm not sure Derek wants any water right now, George," Addison started to say, but he had already let himself into Derek's room and closed the door.

Addison exchanged a look with Helen, silently wondering if she had to go back in there. Derek had to be downright scary about now and he would frighten the wits out of the poor intern. He always yelled and he'd grabbed her earlier. O'Malley had always been a timid thing and people with frontal lobe injuries couldn't be trusted to have much impulse control.

It wasn't long before muffled yelling could be heard, but Helen stayed her movement when Addison made to brave the lion's den to rescue the intern. Some loud thumps followed and then O'Malley flew out of the room like the proverbial bat out of hell, looking wild-eyed and frazzled. He limped towards Addison and took the cup out of her hand, draining the water with one gulp.

"George...?" Addison asked him, feeling guilty at the shell-shocked expression on the young doctor's face. She'd never expected her ex-husband to be capable of violence, but he might not be Derek anymore. It was common with personality changes for this kind of brain damage. "Did you hurt your foot?"

O'Malley shook his head, "I stubbed my toe on the chair." Glancing at Helen, he then looked back at Addison before fumbling with the empty cup. "Dr. Montgomery, I have to say, you're the nicer Shepherd."

xoxoxo 

"Memory loss doesn't last forever, does it?" Meredith pulled her scrub cap off of her head and pushed her bangs back, trying not to sound too whiny. "The person does remember everything eventually, right?"

Normally she was in a great mood after a surgery, but these days, all she could think about was Derek. He'd almost died, he'd been in a coma for three weeks, but when he finally came out of it today, all he said to her was "Who the hell are you?" and "Where's my wife?" Seriously!

"Maybe you should ask a neurologist, or a shrink?" McSteamy finished washing his hands and rubbed them dry with a towel. "My specialty doesn't deep-probe the human psyche."

Well, that wasn't very helpful, Meredith pouted. Not that McSteamy was known for showing a lot of tact, but they were a club, really. The Dirty Mistresses Club and they were supposed to help each other when it came to the Shepherds. Why wasn't he more upset about this? The Shepherds weren't the Shepherds any longer, so he should focus on not losing any ground with his half. Why did Derek have to get into an accident in the first place? Why did he have memory loss, why did he remember Addison but forget Meredith, and most of all, why did her life suck so badly?

"He remembers you and you cheated on him!"

She knew she was being petulant and that it was unattractive, but Derek was her McDreamy and he didn't remember! So, she was entitled to express a certain amount of dismay and irritability. When a girl's soulmate -- the most perfect man alive -- couldn't remember her, she had a right to be cranky. At least she should have that right, so Meredith was having a moment.

"I cheated on him?" McSteamy looked amused and she felt like stomping her foot in frustration at not being taken seriously.

"Oh, you know what I mean! You were best friends! I would never cheat on my person like that!"

"Burke is much too intense for you." He was laughing now and Meredith huffed in annoyance. "Look, I'm sure Derek will realize he can't live without you and besides, he and Addison are divorced."

Yeah, that did not feel too reassuring to her. McSteamy hadn't been there when Derek woke up and promptly threw her out of the room, when Meredith told him she was his girlfriend. He had not been dreamy. He had wanted his 'wife' and actually screamed at the poor Chief to get Addison. It had been a very traumatic experience. For the Chief too, Meredith was sure.

"Why aren't you upset about this?" she pouted, sticking out her bottom lip as she folded her arms across her chest. "If they get back together, then that means that you won't have Addison anymore. We'll both be McShepherd-less!"

She'd thought that argument might get to him, but instead he looked more amused than ever. All right, so maybe he and Addison didn't have that perfect love that Meredith and Derek had. Maybe it was just all about sex, which was fine if it worked for them. That wasn't the important thing, though. What was important was that Derek was The One for her and she was his One, and right now, he didn't remember any of that because he was injured and hurt, and had the stupid idea that he was in love with Addison. It just wasn't true! Even if he didn't remember that she'd cheated on him, he'd never felt for her what he did for Meredith. Everyone knew that, so why didn't Derek?

McSteamy gave a nonchalant shrug and grinned at her in that way of his which was really hot but ultimately ineffective, because she was hopelessly in love with Derek. "Well, Meredith, first of all, since Derek and Addison imploded once, they can do it again. Second, I've never exactly had trouble finding women who were attracted to me." He sized her up in a way that was completely inappropriate for an attending to look at the intern on his service and she realized she had to redirect the conversation once more.

"You are not in love with Addison anymore? Did all the rain in Seattle get to you? Is this the magic place where men fall out of love with gorgeous redheads?"

Teasing him had to work. Addison was both tall and beautiful, and a good surgeon too. That she was all wrong for McDreamy didn't mean she wasn't right for someone else. Like McSteamy. He didn't require nurturing, not having the sensitive soul that Derek did. Mark kind of looked like what he needed most was hot, loud and steamy jungle sex. Often. Meredith was sure Addison Montgomery could provide that. Her come-fuck-me-now heels and white coat were the stuff of which wet dreams were made, at least according to a disturbing one-sided conversation Meredith had overheard in the janitorial closet.

"Maybe skinny blondes have magic powers in the rain?" McSteamy winked at her. "Maybe I will pick you, choose you, love you."

"You're mocking me." This didn't do. Not at all. The Dirty Mistresses Club was formed to commiserate, not to make fun of the lovelorn. Not that Meredith was lovelorn, because that sounded pathetic. She was just slightly distressed at being rebuffed by the man whose life she'd saved when he first arrived in Seattle and couldn't breathe for the betrayal he'd suffered. She'd healed him. Dammit.

"Oh, come on, I can be a nice guy." He gave her his McSteamy grin and Meredith would have been tempted if she hadn't been completely, one hundred percent dedicated to Derek Shepherd. "I'll even give you the last piece of cheesecake, how's that?"

"Shut up." Meredith glared at him, wondering how he could have possibly found out about that. She was trying to be a caring and supportive person here, and she'd gone to him because they both had an investment in the Shepherds. Derek was Mark's best friend, or had been, and wouldn't Mark want him to be happy? "So, are you going to help me or not?"

"Well, that would depend on what you want me to help you with, wouldn't it?" He was being deliberately obtuse, Meredith was sure of it, and again, she wanted to stomp her foot in frustration. "I know Derek does that whole dreamy guy thing, but when I do stuff, it tends to be because there's something in it for me."

Honestly. The man was completely insufferable and she wouldn't have bothered if she'd known he would be so difficult. And unfortunately, she needed his help, because right now Derek didn't remember who she was, but he would know Mark, since they'd grown up together. If Mark would just be helpful and intervene, then he could be with Addison and Meredith and McDreamy would be together like they were supposed to be, and there wouldn't be any need to rehash the last year. True, soulmates never had it easy, but it wasn't supposed to be _this_ hard.

"You have to talk to him. And her too. You," Meredith tried to gather her thoughts which were swirling around at a dizzying speed, "have to sleep with Addison. You like sex, so you get some of that. Please, just sex her up. Take one for the team! ...or something."

She fell silent, uneasy with the way in which he looked at her. "Have a drink with me. Then I'll make sure Addison is bow-legged the next time Derek sees her."

"What? No! I can't be your girl at the bar. Derek will find out and I can't do that to him. I'm not Addison. Why can't you just do her in the linen closet? Seriously. It can't be that much of a chore. She has really long legs!"

Meredith was getting worked up and she could feel the beginning sting of tears in her nose. Mark Sloan had to do that sleazy manwhore thing he did and make sure Derek didn't decide to be a noble knight in shining whatever who had to win back the wrong love of his life. He was misguided right now and needed their help and support to find his way back to her. Preferably before Addison snared him again and had a bun in the oven. The thought of a McBaby was nauseating and would break her heart for sure.

"Aw, no, you're not going to cry, are you?" He groaned, looking very put out. That was another difference between him and Derek -- Derek was sweet and sensitive and would always have tissues handy in case a girl started crying. "Please tell me you're not going to cry, because I hate when girls do that."

She sniffled, partly because she really was about to cry, in part because Meredith thought if she did cry, he might feel sorry enough for her to help, and partly because if he didn't help, then her crying might annoy him and it would serve him right. Besides, she had enough baggage already, with an overbearing mother and an absent wuss of a father. Further development of her abandonment issues was simply not needed.

"Well, why shouldn't I? I waited months and months to get my McDreamy out of Addison's clutches, and now I'll have to start all over!"

Meredith gave a little sob and threw herself at McSteamy, locking her arms around his waist as she sobbed against his chest. Mark put his hands on her back and patted her awkwardly. "Aw, come on. Really, don't cry, okay?" He gave a huge sigh and Meredith started to feel a lot better. "I'll do it, okay? I'll give Addison some afternoon delight, if you'll just stop with the crying."

"You will?" She pulled back and wiped her eyes, smiling sweetly at him. The sweet, helpless act had always worked on Derek and apparently even McSteamy wasn't immune. "Thank you so much, Mark. This means a lot, to Derek and to me."

He stared at her for a good, long moment. "You might want to blow your nose. There's snot on your face, and it looks gross."


	3. Chapter 3

"Dude! You look like crap." Alex had just put away the chart on Baby Girl Prescott when Addison entered the NICU, looking worse for the wear, and the words escaped before he could check them.

"Why, thank you, Dr. Karev." Addison rolled her eyes as she passed him on her way to check on her latest patient. "What a sweet thing to say."

He hadn't meant it like that. Alex wasn't looking to insult her, but Addison looked bone-weary and he'd heard about Shepherd's amnesia. By now it was all over the hospital how Meredith had been kicked to the curb like yesterday's garbage and Alex was thankful he hadn't seen her since. He didn't need an encore of 'woe is me' as told by Meredith Grey, but he wanted to ask how Addison was doing. Bringing up the topic, though, was tricky. You weren't supposed to quiz your attending on her personal life and Alex wasn't much for social pleasantries. When you had to babysit your alcoholic dad from age seven, to keep him from beating up on your mom, it didn't leave much time for tea parties.

"She's doing much better," he nodded towards the baby. "Her stats are up."

Addison had delivered the little girl a few days earlier, but lost her twin brother during the Caesarean and they hadn't been sure the newborn would survive either. She'd clung on, though, with all her tiny might and Alex stole a few glances at Addison while she checked the baby, to gauge how well she was hanging in there. It had to seriously suck to be the medical guardian of your ex, even without the amnesia.

"She's not out of the woods yet, but her vitals are looking a lot better." Addison touched the baby's hand, smiling slightly when the little girl wrapped her fingers around Addison's. "This one's a fighter." She looked at the baby for a moment, and her smile faded. "I wish we could have saved the other one too."

"Um." Alex tried to find something to say in response to that. Preferably something that didn't make him sound like a gigantic ass, but the truth was that he wasn't much good at the whole comforting words bit. He did fail his practicals the first time and he couldn't manage to hold down a steady girlfriend. Tender and attuned to the emotive crap wasn't in him, simple as that. He nodded his head in the direction of the baby. "You think this one'll be okay?"

"Like I said, she's not out of the woods and there's still a risk of bowel obstruction." Addison had resumed her professional, no-nonsense facade. "I want her monitored and I want to be updated immediately if her status changes."

Great. He'd made her retreat into being Dr. Montgomery, which hadn't been his intention. He knew the situation with her ex had to suck monkey balls and he felt bad for her, but he just wasn't good at this sensitive shit. Wanting to say something useful and actually managing to do it were two very different things.

Despite their craptastic start, Alex had gotten used to working gynie duty and Addison Montgomery wasn't half-bad. She was... smart and sexy and... Why the hell was he thinking about that? She was just a chick, who already had enough guys at this hospital get into her pants. Besides, Alex wasn't a girl, nursing a stereotypical crush on the attending. He was here to become a kickass surgeon, not to smell Addison Montgomery's hair.

"So, was Meredith's McDreamy normal, or did he drool out of the side of his mouth?"

She slowly raised her eyes and when her cool gaze settled on his, Alex shrugged a little. He couldn't see what was so dreamy about Derek Shepherd -- the guy was an ass, plain and simple, and it was normally the case with brain trauma victims that there were residual problems which had to be attended to in physiotherapy and such.

"You're a real charmer, Alex Karev," she said dryly.

"What, because I'm not a sleazy hypocrite, like your ex-husband?" He wasn't entirely sure why he was goading her, but it felt good and it was about damn time to stop pretending Shepherd was some sort of Prince Charming. Alex had gotten flack for screwing Olivia, while Derek got off scot-free when he and Meredith rutted like crazed baboons at the prom, to which the supposedly dreamy guy had brought his wife as a date. At least Alex was honest about what he was.

"Why are you so concerned about him?" Addison was staring at him now, with that pissy expression on her face she used when she wanted to intimidate others. It usually worked too -- Addison Montgomery could be downright scary when she wanted to be -- but Alex had spent enough time with her to know her bark was worse than her bite.

"I was wondering the same about you," he shrugged, reaching for the baby's chart to jot down a few more notes. He really hoped Shepherd's memory loss didn't bring back the whole Meredith-Derek-Addison drama again, because Addison had already been through it once and more importantly, because Alex was just plain sick of hearing about Derek Shepherd and his fucked-up love life. "You're divorced, remember? You don't owe him anything."

"Have you gotten the lab work back on the O'Brian baby?" she inquired without missing a beat. You had to admire the way the woman could put aside her disaster of a personal life when it was time to be a doctor. Even if she did use it to avoid subjects she didn't want to think about.

"Yes, but there were no abnormalities in the biopsy. The other Prescott baby, you did all you could for him." Alex wasn't sure why he was returning to that topic since he didn't really want to do the touchy-feely bit and thankfully, the patients in neonatal were too tiny to complain about his bedside manner. He just knew he didn't want her to think she'd somehow failed her patient, not when she was having such a shitty day on top of losing the preemie.

"Yeah, I know I did. I just wish..." Addison sighed, looking down at the baby, away from Alex. "I know I don't owe Derek anything, but he's hurt and confused, and who knows what his injuries will mean for his ability to return to the OR? Divorce doesn't mean you can't feel compassion for another human being in pain."

She definitely looked like she was in pain, her eyes filling with tears and Alex wish he'd kept his big trap shut from the moment she stepped into the room. He had no idea how to comfort her and the fact that he felt a need to do so annoyed him. Addison was a double board certified surgeon and should know how to handle her own damn life without falling apart in front of an intern. Except she obviously didn't want him to see that she was on the verge of tears.

She caught him looking at her and blinked back the tears in her eyes, struggling to compose herself. "It's just hard sometimes, you know?" She touched the baby's cheek gently with her finger. "That little boy died and he didn't do anything wrong. And Derek...I don't know what to do about him." She sighed and took a deep breath. "Anyhow, I'd like you to go update this little girl's mother on her condition."

Alex nodded and started to leave, grateful to have an excuse to escape the whole messy situation. Addison needed a nice guy, someone who'd read bedtime stories and play catch, and he sure as hell didn't fit the bill. Not that he wanted to fit into her future. He'd already tried the relationship thing with Izzie and that didn't work, and all the crap which went with hooking up with your attending? No thanks. Alex would find other ways of getting in on cool surgeries. Not even Dr. Addison Montgomery could be that good in the sack to outweigh the utter fail of becoming like Meredith Grey.

xxx

"I cried on McSteamy." Meredith sagged into her seat. She didn't like feeling so insecure and she really wanted George to reassure her right about now. He was on neuro and had to have seen Derek several times today. "How's Derek holding up?"

"You cr-cried?" George looked disconcerted. "You cried on your attending."

She didn't want to think about the undignified moment when it was pointed out to her that she had snot on her cheek. The situation was dire enough without Mark Sloan telling her she was unattractive. Derek was man enough to find Meredith's snoring quirky. He didn't need some sort of penis extension in the form of a leggy and fabulous woman with perfect hair and extensive wardrobe to feel like a manly man. He would have been very understanding and supportive of her soiling his scrubs!

"He wouldn't screw Addison!"

George's eyes started moving around in random patterns. "You cried because Sloan didn't want to have sex with Dr. Montgomery?"

So, maybe she hadn't phrased that in the best way possible, not in a way that conveyed the seriousness of her current McDreamyless existence. "When you say it like that, it sounds ridiculous." Meredith pursed her lips, this was a McNightmare.

"It does," George smiled around the straw of his milkshake, "a little bit."

"What guy doesn't want to sleep with Addison?" God, Meredith certainly hoped Derek Shepherd was a guy like that! "She's sexy, right? You'd sleep with her, George, wouldn't you?"

"Yea-ye-you're not asking me to make a move on Dr. Montgomery, right, Mere? 'Cause I don't think--"

"No! Of course not! You're George and she's Addison."

"So..." George trailed off as he set his milkshake down on the table. "You want Dr. Sloan to have sex with Dr. Montgomery, and when he said he wouldn't, you cried. Not just cried. You cried _on_ him."

Meredith let out her breath in an impatient huff. "George, Derek thinks he's still in love with Addison and she's not over him, because who could ever get over McDreamy?" She pushed away the nagging guilt about the exam room sex into the back of her mind. The Shepherd marriage had been over before she'd even entered the picture and Derek was her McDreamy now. "I can't let her steal him all over again!"

"How do you know she still wants him, though?" George asked, shrugging his shoulders. He didn't understand and Meredith wished it really was that easy. "She didn't even visit him before today. That doesn't sound like she's madly in love with him."

"Exactly!" Finally, George was starting to get it. If he could grasp that McDreamy was meant for her and not for Addison, then he could very possibly be in a position to do something about it. He was on Derek's treatment team, and could put in a word or three for Meredith. "And McSteamy did agree to seduce Addison, so I think it might all work out after all."

She had a suspicion that Mark had only agreed to get her to stop crying on him, but she would take what she could. As long as Sloan did the deed with Addison, it didn't matter why. Derek would see that his ex-wife was McSlutty and that his destiny lay elsewhere, namely with Meredith.

"You're... going to tell Derek that his ex-wife is still sleeping with his ex-friend? I don't see how McSteamy doing the horizontal rhumba with Dr. Montgomery is going to make any difference to Shepherd's memory loss. Unless you plan on showing him photos of the nasty deed?"

Meredith sighed. That was true. She should have told Mark to get the panties! It would have triggered memories of their reunion sex, she was sure. To put Derek through this emotional wringer again, though, to make him realize the truth of what they had together... or could have, broke her heart. It would have been so much easier if McSteamy just could have knocked up Addison, or something! Then she would have been too busy gestating the spawn of her wickedness to steal other women's men.

"What did you mean, I'm George and she's Addison? You don't-- You don't think a woman like her could be interested in me? 'George is a klutzy intern and not cool enough to bag his own attending,' is that it?"

"Oh, George!" Meredith laughed; he just looked so affronted and sweet at the same time.

George really was a good guy, but he very definitely didn't seem like Addison Montgomery's type. She went for the eye candy and didn't really care about the inside. If she did, she never would have hurt Derek the way she did. She had four names... Well, three now, but there were plenty of syllables left and she oozed of money. The befuddled youngest son of a blue-collar man wouldn't do.

"What? I can be guyly!"

"I'm sorry, you're right," Meredith tried to smooth his ruffled feathers. George was very sweet and had an innocence that was very endearing, even if he wasn't hers or Addison's type. More importantly, keeping him happy was essential to her plan, since she needed him to talk to Derek and remind McDreamy of all the special times they'd shared together. "You're a very tough, rugged, sexy man."

"You're just making that up." George crossed his arms and pouted, seeming to see right through her attempts to boost his ego. "You really don't think Dr. Montgomery would find me attractive, do you?"

"I heard her talking to Callie last week, saying she wished she could find a guy who was sensitive and cared about her instead of being an empty-headed pretty face," Meredith lied, hoping her expression looked sincere enough to convince George. It wasn't a lie, really -- she had heard Addison and Callie talking, and the attending lamenting her love life, even if George's name hadn't come up. "She said something about how she needed to look for substance over style."

"She did, huh?" George seemed to puff up at her words, and Meredith knew she had him. Now all she had to do was figure out how to get her friend to make Derek remember who she was, and that she was his soulmate.

xxx

Richard's office was already full when Addison arrived, fifteen minutes late due to a surgery running late. She let herself in quietly and Richard stood up and gestured for her to take his chair. She shook her head, but he fixed her with that look of his and she sat down, turning her attention to the already heated conversation going on in the room.

"No, he's responded very well so far," Helen said, tapping Derek's chart, which was sitting in front of her on Richard's desk. "Considering the extent and the location of the trauma, his regained consciousness is a major victory."

Her voice was serious, raspy and once again, Addison felt herself react like the wife, not the fellow physician. She knew the path ahead would be long and thorny and that Derek may never return to the man he was, but to hear it so bluntly stated that they should be thankful that he was still there, still breathing, made her stomach drop.

"How long is the memory loss going to last," Meredith wanted to know.

Addison wasn't too thrilled to see the intern here, especially after their last encounter, but she understood that Richard had probably invited her out of compassion. She'd begun to resemble a Raggedy Ann doll even more closely in the last weeks, with the messy hair and wrinkled scrubs.

"Is that the slutty intern?" could be heard over the speaker phone from the Shepherd camp. Nancy, ever the frank one, had been the recipient of more than one call since Addison found the panties in Derek's pocket. They'd been friends from the very start and Nancy had been the one Addison was trying to get a hold of when she finally ended up calling Mark for a booty call.

Richard coughed in surprise and Meredith's eyes turned really round, but no one answered until Mark moved closer. "Yeah, that's the slutty intern," he smiled lazily at Addison and she had the sudden urge to flip him the bird. She didn't since that would probably have shocked poor Richard and he'd already seen her undignified side too many times. The last time, in the ER on the night of Derek's accident, had been particularly bad.

"With all due respect, Dr. Sloan," Addison paused to glare at Mark, who shrugged his shoulders cheekily and looked amused at the scene playing out before them. "I think our priority here is Derek's health and what needs to be done to aid his recovery."

"Addison, is that you?" Derek's sister Kathleen was the one talking now. Addison hadn't been as close to her as she was to Nancy, but she had always gotten along well with all the Shepherds, and Derek used to pout that his family liked her better than they liked him. "Helen says you told Derek that you're not married anymore. How did he take it?"

"Not so well." Addison sighed, remembering the tears in Derek's eyes as he'd insisted that they were Derek and Addison and could make it through anything. Even worse was the look of utter devastation on his face as she told him about her affair with Mark, before he closed himself off and started shouting at her to get out of his sight. "He was pretty upset."

"But that's just because he hasn't gotten his memory back," Meredith piped up eagerly, appearing to have recovered from Nancy's 'slutty intern' remark. "When he does, it'll all be okay, and I'll take really good care of him until he's well again."

"Will you give the amnesia thing a rest?" Nancy sounded exasperated at the intern, and Addison tried to hide a smile at how everyone in the room seemed to agree with the sentiment. "We have more important things to talk about than your epic love affair with my brother."

"We don't know yet how long before the amnesia disappears, or if it even will," Helen corrected Meredith, her voice quiet but firm. "There's some damage to the neural pathways in the prefrontal cortex. There isn't anything we can do to help Derek retrieve those memories, should the loss prove permanent."

Addison already knew this, but it was still hard to hear. Even if they were divorced and Derek despised her, she didn't wish this upon him. A traumatic brain injury was bad enough without having to worry about possible changes to his personality and what it would mean for his recovery, for his ability to remain a surgeon.

"Considering Derek's living conditions, in a trailer in the middle of nowhere, I think it's only prudent that one of us come out there to escort him back East, to complete his rehabilitation, once he can safely travel."

Logically, it made sense. Derek couldn't be on his own when he got discharged and he had no family in Seattle. Addison had been dismissed from her position and no matter how devastated Meredith looked from receiving this piece of news, she couldn't contest it.

Emotionally, though, she felt trampled. Apart from those few months after Derek had fled New York and she'd missed him acutely, Addison hadn't gone a day without seeing him for 15 years. That was a sizable chunk of time, a third of her life and she swallowed hard at the prospect. Even if he hated her and she needed time to heal after his stinging rejection, she didn't feel ready for goodbye.

A glance at the intern told her that Meredith had shut down. She recognized how hard it must be for the other woman, disremembered and invalidated.

"That would make it easier for me to follow up on his case," Helen offered, looking at Addison in a way that made her feel naked. "As gracious as Dr. Webber has been, I'm not sure he wants to put up with my roaming his halls indefinitely."

"Dr. Crawford, you saved Derek's life. You're more than welcome to roam my hospital for as long as you want." Richard nodded emphatically and Addison remembered how worried he'd looked these last few weeks while Derek was in his coma. Back in New York, Richard and Derek had butted heads more times than Addison could remember, but they had developed a close friendship and she knew this had to be rough on the older man.

"What about you, Addison?" Nancy wanted to know. Addison had known her opinion would be asked, and that she would have to answer with what she knew would be best for Derek. "You're the one with the deciding vote, after all."

"New York does make the most sense," Addison admitted, hoping the reluctance she felt wasn't evident in her voice. She'd come to Seattle for Derek and she couldn't conceive of life here without him, but like it or not, that was how it was going to have to be. She had obligations here, and Derek and Addison weren't Derek-and-Addison anymore. The least she could give him was a chance to start fresh. A clean break with his past.


	4. Chapter 4

"Um, Dr. Shepherd?"

Derek woke from his nap to see an intern standing by his bed. "Huh?" He was the one named O'Malley, who'd offered to fetch him water after Addison dropped the bombshell that she'd cheated, and he was Helen's errand boy on Derek's case.

The intern was shifting his weight from foot to foot and looking rather nervous. "I'm uh, I need some blood from you so we can run some tests." O'Malley held up a syringe and several glass vials.

"Don't the nurses usually do that?" Derek rubbed his face with the palm of his hand and looked back at the intern, feeling slightly disoriented. The painkillers he was on were doing a decent job for the pain, but his mental facilities were markedly impaired. Although that might be the result of the brain damage... or maybe he was still in shock from Addison's revelations?

"Well, I was here anyhow, so I figured I might as well do it myself." O'Malley looked more anxious than ever as he pulled up a stool and sat down beside the bed.

Derek obediently held out his arm, wondering what this was all about. He also wondered how Addison was doing, where she'd gone after he yelled at her to get out of his sight. Her infidelity was like being suffocated by cold, dark water, but the not knowing of her whereabouts and her... whatever, that wasn't good either.

"Have you seen my-- uh... Dr. Shepherd?"

O'Malley briefly looked up from his fiddling with the vial. "You're Dr. Shepherd."

Derek wasn't sure if he should let someone that obtuse draw his blood. "The other Dr. Shepherd. Addison."

"Oh! Well, I think Dr. Montgomery is in the OR. The miracle preemie had a bowel obstruction and I don't think they're done yet."

Dr. Montgomery. That sounded... unnatural, like a limb had been cut off when there was no hyphenization with his name. Derek really didn't understand how it had come to this. Addison had cheated on him. With Mark. And, that thought made him sick.

But, when he'd left her, she'd come after him and they'd agreed on a reconciliation -- he had had the deciding vote on the matter -- so why didn't they manage to pull it together? They were Derek-and-Addison, for God's sake! They were determined people, fighters and being in a different environment should have helped revitalize their marriage, when they were both committed to mending what had broken between them.

"Ow!" Derek winced and yanked his arm away, grimacing at the sight of the large drop of blood at the crook of his elbow before turning his glare to the intern. "Didn't they teach you how to draw blood in medical school? That hurt!"

"Sorry," O'Malley apologized quickly, fumbling around before producing a piece of gauze to place on the bleeding. "I missed the vein, but I'll get it the next time, I promise."

"You'd better," Derek growled, patting his sore arm before taking the gauze off and looking back at the intern. "You'd probably do better if your hands weren't shaking so much." The guy was one jumpy surgeon and Derek wondered how he'd ever been admitted into the program. "You're not sticking needles in me until you calm down and tell me what you want that's making you try to stab my arteries."

"Oh, I don't want anything." O'Malley shook his head furiously, the way someone did when they were obviously lying. "Except, you know Meredith, right? Well, um, I know you don't remember her, but you were pretty crazy about her before you got in that accident, and I was thinking maybe you'd remember if I told you about her?"

Derek sighed. "O'Malley, you know I've had brain surgery, right? You were here when the nice lady, who operated on me, said that I may never fully regain my memory due to the tissue damage, were you not?"

"Yes...?" The intern looked confused and Derek wanted to punch him in the face. Or, punch the wall, or punch the wall with the other man's face. It didn't really matter. He just really wanted to break something. Anything. Mostly Mark, but at the moment, even a klutzy intern would do as stand-in.

"I just found out that I'm divorced from my wife of eleven years -- Eleven years, O'Malley! -- because she cheated on me. I love her and she betrayed me, and you think I want to chat with you about some skinny blonde intern?"

O'Malley looked like he thought backing away slowly was a good idea, before he got stabbed with a needle himself. What Derek wanted most was to go back to sleep and not have these thoughts buzzing around in his mind, wondering about the choices he'd made and what to do with all the conflicting feelings he had. Maybe things would be back to normal when he woke up again.

"I just thought you might want to know," O'Malley stammered, shrinking back from Derek's glare. "Because you were pretty clear after the prom that she was the one you wanted to be with. I mean, you took her underwear, and you told Addison you wanted a divorce, so it seemed like you and Mere were pretty serious."

"I did _what_?" The last word was almost a scream as Derek tried to wrap his head around that new piece of information. The prom by itself was baffling enough without having to wonder what had possessed him to steal another woman's underwear. That was disgusting in more than one way, unhygienic, as well as a seriously weird and creepy thing to do. He didn't even like the bony intern. Why on earth had he felt the need to take her panties?

O'Malley was on his feet now, looking nervously out the door toward the nurse's station. "I don't think you're supposed to get this agitated, Dr. Shepherd. You just woke up from a coma and you need to take it easy."

"How am I supposed to take it easy, when you tell me I stole some woman's underwear?!" Derek shouted, feeling good at being able to let go. "What was I doing with them anyhow? And why were we at a prom? What kind of hospital is this?!"

"Uh... it-it's a teaching hospital, but we were having a prom for the Chief's niece. It's a long story, which I won't get into, but you realized at that prom you couldn't live one more second without Meredith and you, uh, you... you know."

Derek felt like his eyes were about to bug out of his head and there was probably steam issuing from his ears. He went to a prom, at a hospital no less, and fell in love with a seriously underweight woman. She must have some sort of eating disorder and those hips were just so narrow, he couldn't for the life of him see himself as being attracted to that woman, especially not enough so to leave his wife for her.

"I couldn't live without her, so I stole her panties?" That made no sense and Derek began to wonder if this was a mental ward and O'Malley was an inmate. Maybe he was hallucinating and the twitchy intern was a construct of his subconscious?

"Well, you and Meredith had sex and you confiscated them afterwards, which didn't turn out so well -- even if you thought it was romantic at the time? -- since they ended up on the bulletin board after Dr. Montgomery found them in the pocket of your jacket. She'd even washed them."

Well then, she'd washed the panties. That... So, not only had Derek had sexual relations with that woman, but he hadn't had the fortitude to deal with the situation directly. What kind of man cheated on his wife and left the evidence for her to find? An unmitigated bastard, that was who and his theory of having a psychotic break was looking very appealing compared to the alternative.

"So I went to the prom, I had sex with a woman who wasn't my wife and then, I stole her panties?" His head was hurting badly and Derek wondered if he really was about to have that aneurysm. He fell back into his pillow, closing his eyes as he tried to make sense out of this new information. No wonder Addison had seemed so skittish earlier, and so adamant about the fact that they were now divorced.

"You were really in love with her," O'Malley offered, and Derek wished he would just shut up and go away. "With Meredith, that is. Even before the prom, you were always talking and flirting, and you smelled her hair in the elevator a few times."

Derek opened his eyes and shot death rays at the intern, who thankfully grasped how much danger he was in, since he began slowly backing away toward the door. A wise choice on the boy's part, Derek thought, considering he was about two seconds from breaking something or someone. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

xxx

He could feel her eyes on him. Helen was resting on the couch in the attendings' lounge and he was trying to eat, but despite having his back to her, Mark could sense her watching him. She'd always been reserved towards him, no amount of charm had ever worked, something which Derek had found hilarious back in New York. He couldn't ever manage get Helen or Addison on his side in any dispute on patient care, which pretty much meant Derek always had his back covered.

"Did you move out here to spite him?" At that he did turn to look at her. "Every woman in the hospital had a crush on the handsome neurosurgeon because he was such a honorable man. A man who did not cheat on his wife, despite ample opportunity." Her tone was dry, disapproving, as if Mark had instigated Derek's affair with Meredith Grey.

"Oh, come off it, Helen! You know as well as I do that Derek had checked out of that marriage long before I entered the picture."

Moving to Seattle hadn't been about Derek. Well, it had, but not in the way that he was trying to stick it to the other man. Sure, they were in healthy competition with each other and always had been, but strange as it may seem, Mark hadn't wanted to hurt Derek. It was the taboo of Addison he found so alluring, because she was off-limits and unapproachable. He'd moved because he missed his friend, missed their game of one-up and the thrill of the chase.

"Derek sought refuge in his work. Not because he didn't love Addison, but because he was afraid she didn't love him as much." She stared at him with that oddly penetrative look she had, almost beckoning him to challenge her. "Derek wanted a family, badly, and he couldn't understand why Addison continued to refuse him." Mark didn't much understand that either, and Derek had asked him often enough about what to do, but he wasn't about to tell Helen that. "Their marriage was strong and he was devoted to her, you know he was. It was the next natural step, but years passed without her ever feeling ready. Derek was scared."

Western culture was very preoccupied with marriage and babies, but not everybody was cut out for the white picket fence fantasy. Addison didn't want kids, that was painfully clear to Mark by now and Derek had actually been lucky that there had been a discussion beforehand. That he hadn't been blindsided by how callous Addison could be, in a way worse than walking in on her getting her happy with someone else. There were worse things than infidelity. That wasn't the ultimate rejection by a long shot.

"So ignoring Addison and spending all his time at the hospital was supposed to make her ready?" Mark matched her gaze, not wanting to be the one to blink first, or look away. "I know Derek's your friend and you're on his side. I get that, but you never saw what that indifference did to Addison."

"I'm not saying that what he did was right." She was composed and her voice calm, but she wasn't yielding an inch. Mark hadn't known her well in New York, but even so, he'd known it wasn't wise to get on her bad side. "I told him the same thing you're saying, more than one time. But Derek's not a bad person, Mark. Hurting Addison wasn't his intention."

"Yeah, well, we all know where those good intentions of his led." Mark shrugged his shoulders and gestured around the near-empty room. He knew Helen Crawford meant well and she'd saved Derek's life, even, but she wasn't the authority on the Shepherd marriage. She hadn't known Derek since playground, or been the one to pick up the pieces every time Derek had canceled plans with Addison, or just plain stood her up. "Not to happily ever after, in any case."

"Haven't you ever done things you regretted because you were scared, Mark? We don't think clearly when we're frightened, and sometimes we make everything worse because of it."

Well, yes, he could certainly see the validity of that statement since after Addison moved in with him, Mark was terrified of becoming Derek, trusty and complacent with a trophy wife on his arm, so he'd started sleeping around. Well, he'd never really stopped, but he hadn't expected Addison to dye her hair blonde and move in with him. It had been disconcerting, to say the least. He hadn't been quite ready, not until after and his indiscretions had been the trigger for Addison to come to Seattle. After she'd gotten rid of their accidental offspring, so Derek never would find out.

"We all do stupid things, Mark. We all make mistakes when we're afraid." She continued to stare at him, her head tilted to the side. "You did, and Derek, and Addison too. It doesn't mean that any of you are bad people, but even so, it doesn't mean that your actions were in any way less hurtful."

She was right, even if Mark didn't want to admit it. He'd been a complete shit to his best friend, driving both Shepherds to the opposite side of the country. It wasn't something he liked thinking about, since it was easier to justify his actions by telling himself that Derek had treated Addison badly for a long time, and that Addison was so cold and unfeeling that she'd killed their child. The kid which would have been his ultimate victory over Derek, but also someone to take to baseball games... maybe even build a tree house out in the Hamptons.

"Yeah, I guess," Mark gave in, sighing deeply as he rubbed his face, feeling drained and tired. He hadn't been sleeping well lately, and the prospect of the inevitable confrontation with Derek over the affair wasn't too pleasant to think about.

xxx

"I want a mirror."

Alex set down the charts with an exasperated sigh. Sloan had sent him in to brief Shepherd on the reconstructive surgery he'd had the night of the accident, and Alex had been trying to do just that for the last ten minutes. Shepherd didn't seem as interested in his medical condition as he was in his appearance, which went to show that the guy's vanity was intact, even if his memory wasn't.

"Do you want to hear about this or not? Because I have other patients to see, who have much more pressing issues than how pretty they look." Alex was losing patience, and he would have walked out altogether, if it wasn't for the fact that he wanted to see the neurosurgeon's reaction to his new face. The staff had placed bets on what the reaction would be and Alex had twenty bucks riding on Shepherd being most upset about his shaved head.

"My face was broken, you fixed it. I get it. I can read my chart later. I want to see what I look like now."

Sullen and sulky, that was how he looked. For the umpteenth time, Alex wondered why Addison had married this dude, why she'd returned to him and then let him cheat on her. It made no sense. Shepherd was such a tool and not even a good-looking one. He was, or had been now, a brain surgeon, but that was all the guy had to brag about, really. It was sad, or would have been, if he weren't so damn annoying.

"I know there will be swelling and bruising, Dr. um, Karev. I went to medical school too, but now I want you to get me a goddamn mirror."

Alex raised an eyebrow, refusing to take the bait. He wasn't about to be bossed around by anyone, let alone this twerp with the overinflated ego. Yeah, it must suck to get the shit knocked out of you by an eighteen wheeler, but the guy had been a wanker long before that.

"You don't look so great, so I don't know why you're that anxious to see yourself."

Shepherd was glaring at him now, the scowl on his face doing little to make him more attractive. "You're an intern and I'm an attending. One of your attendings, even, so when I say get me a mirror, that means you get me one, now. Understand?"

"Right now you're a patient and I'm a doctor, your doctor, even, so when you give me an order, I don't have to take it." He felt a perverse sense of satisfaction at the look on Shepherd's face, who now looked just plain pissed off.

"Get me my wife." Alex could almost hear the other man grind his molars. "You are capable of that, right?"

"Well," Alex smiled brightly. This was just too much fun. "You don't have a wife, so that would pose a slight problem for me."

He really didn't want to watch Addison come and hold Shepherd's hand at the grand unveiling of his new face. The guy needed to make up his damn mind. How long would it be 'Oh, Addison!' before it turned to 'Ew, Addison!' this time? This was a hospital, not a daytime soap and everybody needed to just stop coddling the narcissist.

"You know who I mean," Shepherd growled at him through gritted teeth. He didn't look dreamy in the slightest right now and he was going to find it tough going without his good looks to mask how much of a twat he was when it came right down to it. "I want Addison and I want to look at my new face. I don't see why that's so hard for you to comprehend."

"Addison has patients to see right now," Alex shrugged carelessly, really enjoying watching the neurosurgeon get worked up. He could tell it was getting to the guy, and it was about time Shepherd was taken down a notch or two. It was his own damn fault that Addison wasn't here right now and his not remembering didn't mean he'd been any less of a jerkwad to her. "If looking in a mirror is too strenuous for you right now, we can always wait until you're feeling stronger."

"I've been asking you for a mirror!" Shepherd snapped, looking much more McScary than McDreamy. He looked sort of like a zombie, with the stitches in his scalp and the bruised and discolored face, and his skin was pale white from being inside for weeks. "Haven't you heard a word I've been saying?"

"You're forgetting the magic word," Alex smirked, glad he was standing just out of range of Shepherd's fists since he wouldn't put it past the guy to try to deck him.

The neurosurgeon was staring daggers at him and looking like he wanted to throw something. Alex smiled and shrugged, holding out his hands and enjoying every minute of this. He stared back at Shepherd and felt a sense of satisfaction when the other man looked away first.

"Oh, this is ridiculous." Shepherd reached over and pressed the call button. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked smugly at Alex, very I'll-show-you.

Alex rolled his eyes. The man was behaving like a 5-year old, and he wouldn't be surprised if Shepherd called him a big booger-head when the nurse showed up. He knew that doctors made the worst patients, but the neurosurgeon seemed to be taking it to a new level.

Addison appeared in the doorway a few moments after Shepherd's summons, looking tired. Alex couldn't blame her -- her day was sucking enough already and she had plenty on her hands with the preemie, without having to be taken away from her work to deal with her ex's hissy fit. "What is it, Derek?"

"He won't give me the mirror!" Shepherd whined, pointing an accusing finger at Alex.

He sounded like a cranky child whose brother had taken his favorite dinosaur toy, and Alex could see he wasn't winning any points with Addison. She looked at him, then back at Derek and Alex suddenly felt bad at having put her in this position, of having to come in and mediate.

"Is this what you called me in here for?" Addison sighed, picking up his chart off the table and idly flipping through it. "Because I have a lot of patients to see, and I'm sure you and Dr. Karev can work this out yourselves."

"I just want to see what I look like," Shepherd's voice softened and he gave Addison the McDreamy look, which didn't look so dreamy anymore. "You'll stay with me, won't you, Addie?" Alex stifled the urge to roll his eyes. "Please?"

He was really spreading it on thick and women like Addison weren't stupid. Intelligent chicks didn't fall for any old song and dance, which was why Alex didn't bother lying or covering his tracks. That, and it was just too much work for sex.

"Derek..." Addison sounded uncertain, but she set down the chart and came over to his bedside, her expression a mixture of sympathy and sadness. "It's not so bad. The facial reconstruction went well and it's not so pretty right now, but you're still healing. You have to keep that in mind."

Okay, so maybe she wasn't all that smart. In between Sloan and Shepherd, her track record was anything but stellar. Neither of them had ever really cared about Addison and she was stupid to get suckered in by theatrics, a pitiful display of puppy dog eyes. Especially ones placed in the middle of the face of a ghoul -- Halloween had come early this year.

"Yeah, the scars'll heal, although your hair probably won't grow back over those ones on your head," Alex interjected, wanting to snicker at the look of horror on Shepherd's face. "It's okay, though, you can always wear a hat."

"Dr. Karev, could you give me the mirror, please?" Addison's words were perfectly polite, but her voice was carefully controlled the way it was when she was pissed off and didn't want to make a scene. He'd probably get bitched out later, but it annoyed Alex to see her going right back to her ex after all the shitty stunts Shepherd had pulled on her.

"Yeah, sure." He handed her the mirror, still irritated at her stupidity, but looking forward to seeing Shepherd get an eyeful of himself. Maybe he would even cry, although then Alex would have to watch Addison console him. They were both idiots, and probably deserved each other.

Addison handed the mirror to her ex and sat down in the chair by his bed while Shepherd gaped at his reflection, his mouth falling open. Oh, this was going to be good, Alex thought to himself. The other interns were going to be sorry they missed this scene.

"What happened to my nose?" Shepherd's voice was almost a whisper as he stared into the mirror with a horrified expression on his face. "Who did this? I thought I had reconstructive surgery, not a nose job!"


	5. Chapter 5

"I don't look like myself." Shepherd continued staring into the mirror as he reached for Addison's hand. "This guy... I don't know this guy. Why did they redo my nose? I liked my old one -- this one looks like everyone else's."

Sneaking surreptitious glances at Addison out of the corner of his eye, Derek tried to gauge what her feelings were on his new and 'improved' nose. Everything had changed, even his own damn nose and while he wanted her to find him attractive, he didn't want her to prefer this nose to the previous one. This was making his headache worse and now that he was thinking about that, Addison looked like she had one too.

He wanted to draw her down onto the bed, to massage her temples and scalp, maybe take a little nap together, so he'd know where she was and what she was doing. Derek couldn't rest with the way things were and it annoyed him that he even wanted her here, in his arms, where he could feel her scent and finally relax. She'd cheated on him!

"It looked a lot worse when you came in," Karev butted in and Derek glared at him, willing the other man to go away and leave him alone with his wife. He would have gotten written up and put on enema duty for a month if he'd spoken to his attendings like that as an intern, and Derek really wished he could have the pleasure of busting Karev's ass. "Of course, if we'd known that freakshow was your thing, we would have left it."

"Dr. Karev, don't you have patients to see?" Addison asked frostily and Derek smirked at the intern as he mumbled something and slunk out of the room.

He'd always found his wife incredibly hot when she was angry, magnificent in a way, and the fact that she was angry on his behalf felt pretty fucking good. Naturally, it didn't help with the wanting to touch her and be close to her, and while Addison was still letting him hold her hand, it was rather limp and lifeless in his. He'd never seen her so skittish, and he must have done a real number on her if she spooked this badly. Not like she was blameless in all of this, Derek reminded himself. None of this would have happened if she hadn't fucked his best friend.

"What if someone had removed that little bump on the side of your nose," he touched the left side of her nose and Addison moved quickly out of reach, "would you have felt like you were looking at yourself?"

He wanted... No, Derek needed an anchor, a constant. Everything was new and confusing after he'd woken up and whatever Addison had done, she was his family, the one thing in this whole mess which was familiar to him. The want and the need were conflicting, granted, but he had to have something onto which to hold and Derek couldn't even remember his wife's infidelity.

How was he to retain that spark of righteous indignation over something that seemed preposterous? It felt surreal that Addison, of all people, would do something that callous and all his instincts told him to seek out her counsel on what to do, where to go from here. How could she have betrayed him, and if Derek couldn't feel that betrayal as being real, how could he stay furious? And for that matter, why wasn't she off in New York cavorting with Mark, if they were divorced and she was free?

"I know it's new right now and everything has changed for you, but you'll get used to it," Addison tried to assure him, squeezing his hand, but quickly let go. "You only woke up today, so you haven't had time to get used to any of it. It'll get easier, though, I promise."

"Don't give me any of that bullshit!" Derek snapped, before he could help himself. The look in her eyes wasn't something he liked to see, and he felt like a first class jackass for putting it there.

He was frustrated and upset, and Addison was acting like a stranger, like she was one of the nurses who came in to check his vitals, instead of his wife. His entire world had changed while he was asleep and Derek didn't like it one bit. He didn't know how to deal with it in general, let alone without Addison at his side and he just didn't approve. Of any of it.

"I'm sorry about the panties." She stared at him and he realized that he probably shouldn't have said that, or not in that way. "The intern, he told me." Derek didn't know what else to say, just that he had to apologize and he couldn't remember any of it. "Is it really true?"

Addison looked pretty damn scary, like she was about to go on a murderous rampage, killing off a few interns and he hoped that meant O'Malley had made it all up to poke fun at the amnesiac. But no, she sighed then, and Derek knew that it was true. He'd fucked the dirtblonde intern and stolen her panties.

"You washed them?"

"I washed them," she rubbed her brow, not really looking at him and Derek wondered again if her headache was as bad as his, "and pinned them to the bulletin board."

He smiled. That was his girl. It was familiar, finally something he recognized and a feeling of comfort washed over him. The woman Derek had married was proud and headstrong, and never backed down from a fight. This world seemed a little less odd for her having displayed the evidence of his shame for all to see. The silence that ensued from there, though, was uneasy and uncomfortable, giving Derek plenty of time to think.

He wondered where the rest of his family was -- it seemed strange that they weren't here fussing over him and arguing with the doctors. The Shepherds were a tight-knit clan, and he'd assumed that they would have been camped out in the halls while he was in his coma. Instead, they were elsewhere, and the only family he had was Addison, who wasn't even his family anymore. All he had was a bony blonde intern whom he didn't even like. Much too whiny.

"Addie, where are my sisters?" He looked around the room, half-wondering if they were hiding and waiting for the right moment to jump out and surprise him. It seemed a lot more realistic than them being back East, too busy with their own lives to come to Seattle and see him. Either that, or Addison had gotten custody of them in the divorce. That wouldn't be surprising, seeing as how his family adored her and almost always sided with her over him. "They're here, right?"

"We've been talking every day, and Nancy's coming out soon," Addison answered, and Derek's heart sank. Had he been such an ass that he'd alienated everyone who mattered to him? Nancy was the one who never gave up on him, no matter what, she was always ready to ride shotgun and if not even she was here...

"I think I need a nap. I'm tired." He knew he was acting sulky, but Derek couldn't seem to help himself. He just wanted to sleep and wake up in a world less strange, where he had a family and his own nose. His head was pounding bad. "You should rest too, makes the headache go away..."

xxx

When she turned the corner and saw Addison standing there in the hallway, something inside Meredith snapped. The other woman looked sad and tired, and somehow that was even more irritating than if she'd been smirking smugly at having stolen McDreamy a second time. What right did Addison have to be upset, when she had everything Meredith ever wanted?

"Why are you doing this to him?" Her voice sounded loud even to herself and it captured Addison's attention, along with that of several other staff who happened to be there. "Why can't you just leave him alone? You ruined his life in New York, and then you came here and did it again!"

Addison crossed her arms and sighed loudly. "Meredith, now's just not a good time for this, because I'm really not in the mood."

She wasn't in the mood? Seriously! Addison had certainly been in the mood on the night of Derek's accident, when she'd attacked Meredith for no reason. She'd hit her, lots of times, and it hurt! And then, after all that, she hadn't even bothered to visit Derek when he was in his coma. Meredith had sat by his bed almost the entire time. Addison had probably been screwing McSteamy in Derek's trailer, and Derek thought Addison was the love of his life?

"I want to know how he's doing." Meredith had been at Sloan's beck and call all day and now, Derek must have had a follow-up exam by Dr. Crawford. She'd have to fix his amnesia before he was released because he couldn't go back East. A transfer in residency programs didn't happen over night and who would take care of him, even if he remained in Seattle? He couldn't stay alone in the trailer and Addison... Who knew where Addison lived and it wasn't like she'd take off her designer wear long enough to help rehabilitate Derek anyway.

"He's confused and he's had major surgery. He needs time to adjust."

Meredith wasn't stupid, she knew that she was being told to be patient, but the patronizing manner wasn't doing much for thawing the feelings between them. Even if the other woman didn't like Meredith, she could at least respect her feelings for Derek. She'd spent hours upon hours by his bedside, days bleeding into night, worried that he'd never wake up.

"You already know that Nancy, Derek's sister, will come out here next week to talk to him and see what his options are. By then, we should know if..." Addison looked away for a brief moment, "if he'll be able to..." She didn't finish the sentence, but Meredith understood perfectly. Derek's career may be over and that was another reason why he needed someone who loved him by his side.

"I think he should stay with me," Meredith announced, standing up as tall as she could and looking her fiercest. Addison looked at her with an almost amused expression on her face, and she was being so... mean! "He needs someone who'll take care of him and I can do that better than anyone."

"Meredith, what did I just say about nothing being decided until next week?"

Now Addison sounded annoyed. She was still standing there with her perfect designer clothing and her perfect shoes and her hair looking all perfect, while Meredith looked all messy and tired from working all day and doing a surgery too.

"You shouldn't be his next of kin!" Meredith insisted, holding on tight to the chart in her hands, ready to use it as a shield if need be. "He divorced you, remember? Because he wanted to be with me, and I should get to take care of him because that's what he would want!"

"Derek is clear-headed enough to decide on his own recuperation, Dr. Grey." Addison was sounding even more frosty than usual, towering over her in those damn heels. "I've been consulting with his family on every decision that has been made regarding Derek's care so far and despite our divorce, I act with the full authority of the Shepherds."

Yes, lording the fact that she was still BFF with all of Derek's four sisters and his mother wasn't at all condescending, and how Addison managed that on top of screwing Derek's best friend both then and now, Meredith couldn't quite grasp. It seemed like she could never win in a comparison with the other woman and she was so tired of always falling short. Even though Derek loved her, Meredith could still feel everybody judging her as 'less than.' She needed this opportunity to prove to Derek's family that she was the real love of his life, that she would care for and nurture him.

"Yeah, well, you're not a Shepherd anymore!" Meredith glared at the other woman, wishing her voice didn't sound so high-pitched and that people weren't openly gawking at them. "You didn't even keep his name, and I'm going to be a Shepherd someday."

So what if they'd never talked about that and technically weren't even together when the accident occurred? The thought of committing and living happily ever after scared Meredith about as much as she actually wanted to live the fairy tale, but dammit, she wasn't about to tell the East Coast prima donna that. After all, she was still in denial about it herself and Addison absolutely wasn't her person. She was the adulterous whore of an ex-wife to whom Meredith could never seem to measure up, much like the case with her mother's expectations.

So, most of all, she was just plain tired of feeling inadequate. "Derek's family is going to love me when they meet me, because I make him happy and I didn't screw his best friend!"

"Meredith, just shut up." There was something in Addison's tone that made Meredith want to pounce on her, smack her in that perfect face of hers and yank out her hair by the roots.

She could tell that she'd hit a nerve, because Addison's eyes were flashing in that dangerous way they had been the night Derek had gotten hurt. There was something very feral about the taller woman, lurking just beneath all that refinement, which frightened Meredith a bit. That night, in the ER, Addison had pounced on her as if she'd been lying in wait for it ever since she got to Seattle.

If Addison hit her again, Meredith was going to go to the Chief. She knew he had a soft spot for the redhead, but Meredith wasn't above playing the guilt card. Richard Webber had had an affair with her mother and ruined much of her chances to ever have an emotionally stable relationship of her own. She was too damaged and pushed all the good things away, pushed Derek away, when she got scared because things were serious and she wanted to prevent him from leaving her. Yeah, so that part didn't make much sense, but if Meredith made him leave, it was on her terms. She wouldn't be the leftee.

It had devastated her when Derek chose Addison, so this time she was going to be proactive. If the other woman attacked her again, like a crazy wild cat in heat, Meredith would get her suspended and Addison's access to Derek would effectively be cut off. Not to mention, there'd be a huge blot on her record for assaulting a fellow physician. Hopefully, Mark would come through and take care of the rest.

"No, I'm not going to shut up!" Meredith had her hands balled up into fists now, and she could see the staff at the nurse's station murmuring to themselves, probably taking bets on who would strike first. "Derek loves me, and I'm not going to disappear just because you wish I would! He chose me!" She could feel herself trembling as adrenaline rushed her body. This was her stand and she was going to defend what was rightfully hers. "I'm doing what's best for Derek, because someone has to and you're going to hurt him again, just like you did before. You hurt him and I saved him. I saved him! Me. Fucked-up Meredith!"

"Good afternoon, ladies." Helen suddenly appeared out of nowhere. "If you don't mind, I'd like to borrow Dr. Grey for a while." It wasn't a request, Meredith could see that and Addison nodded briefly before getting on the elevator. There was something slightly unnerving about the neurosurgeon and her amber eyes. Just like her own mother, Helen Crawford seemed to have ways, seemed to know everything and be able to look right through you. "How about coffee? We haven't had a chance to talk yet."

xxx

"What the hell did you think you were doing, Dr. Karev?"

Addison crossed her arms and gave the intern her best glare, which she could tell wasn't working, partly because Alex Karev wasn't afraid of her and partly because she was just plain exhausted from this day and from the last three weeks. Her ex-husband had turned her life upside down with his amnesia and his girlfriend was driving Addison crazy. She had almost lost the preemie today on the operating table and she had slept maybe fifteen hours in the last week. So, she was tired and hungry and wanted to go back to her hotel and take a hot bath and order some room service, but instead she had to dress down an intern for blabbing to Derek about the prom and the panties. This day couldn't possibly get any better.

"I was updating the charts, like you told me to." Karev gestured to the open chart in front of him, and Addison wanted to smack the faux-innocent look off of his face. She really didn't have energy to waste on this and Karev was going to be on scut duty for the next two weeks as it was. "You wanted the Prescott baby monitored every half hour during the night, right?"

"I'm not talking about the charts and you know that perfectly well," Addison snapped, her physical and emotional fatigue finally catching up with her. She'd scared the daylights out of O'Malley when she'd strode up to the nurse's station and demanded a private talk with Karev, and he was still quaking in his boots at the other end of the counter, casting nervous glances in their direction every so often.

"Look, I'm sorry you got paged. I should have handled Shepherd better."

Yes, he should. Telling a patient he looked like a freak... "You need to work on those self-esteem issues in therapy instead of picking on the man with brain damage." She could hear George choking on his own breath and Alex was clenching his jaw, looking sour. "That's a new low, even for you, Karev."

She knew there was more to Alex than met the eye, that he could be sweet and gentle, but today Addison just wanted to murder him. He was the ass who told Derek about the utter mess that was their final break-up and thus made this whole deal all the more painful. Derek may be much more easily provoked after the accident, but he also reminded her of times long since past. Watching him go back East, severing the last of her ties to the man who'd been such a huge part of her life, was going to be difficult enough. She didn't need her ex-husband casting sad puppy eyes at her.

"In the future, you will limit your interaction with Derek to medical matters." Getting into Alex's personal space, she spoke slowly, "Derek didn't need the added confusion of knowing about his cheating, so stay the hell out of my personal business!"

O'Malley looked like he might want to chime in on the conversation and Addison hoped he'd have enough sense not to open his mouth. She wasn't above tearing him a new one too.

"I already said I was sorry. What else do you want from me?" Karev met her glare with one of his own and Addison felt herself getting even angrier. He was the most impossible intern she'd ever met, and while she'd had others that had made her want to tear her hair out, none of them had ever dared to meddle in her personal life. Of course, that wasn't uncommon at Seattle Grace -- maybe it was a West Coast thing?

"Oh, sure, you're sorry." Addison rolled her eyes, struggling to keep the remains of her temper and not shout at him in front of everyone. The last thing she needed was to follow Meredith Grey's meltdown with one of her own. "Sorry isn't going to make Derek forget your telling him about taking Grey's panties. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Karev opened his mouth, looking like he wanted to protest, then shut it again. The expression on his face was odd and unreadable, and O'Malley looked like he was practically hyperventilating. That intern needed a much thicker skin if he had nervous breakdowns over other interns being chewed out.

"I remember working with you the day after." His eyes said more than his mouth, but what they said was unnerving and suddenly, Addison didn't want to have this talk anymore. "The trash can baby case? You talked about making a mistake and wanting the world to freeze." His voice and eyes had turned gentle and she needed to back away from the inappropriate proximity to him in which she found herself.

"Dr. Montgomery..." George's voice broke the strange stalemate.

"What is it, O'Malley?" Addison's voice was curt as she turned her attention to the terrified intern, not knowing whether to be angry at him for butting into a private conversation that was none of his business, or grateful for rescuing her from the standoff with Karev. "I'd ask if you had a question about a patient, but you haven't been on my service today."

"Um, it's not about a patient and it's not all that important, really." O'Malley looked around frantically as he babbled on, and Addison wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him until he got to the point. Any extra reserve of patience she'd had had been used up long ago. She didn't have any left for annoying interns who interrupted and made her wait as they stammered helplessly.

"Like I said, it's not anything, really," O'Malley continued to ramble. "It's just... you look really nice today."

"Dude, are you hitting on the attending?" Alex looked incredulous.

"N-no? I'm just... She has very red hair and long legs and..." Addison blinked, once and again. This wasn't happening to her, not today. "It was a compliment, okay? What's it to you anyway?" O'Malley glared at Karev.

Addison needed to catch up on her sleep before she suffered any more delusions of grandeur. It was really pitiable if she needed George O'Malley and Alex Karev to boost her ego in the wake of the divorce. Maybe she was just imagining Derek's lost little boy antics? Having a psychotic break would explain so much, really, like what the hell she was still doing in Seattle.


	6. Chapter 6

Mark stopped abruptly when he passed by an exam room to find Addison lounging on the exam table. Well, as much as anyone could lounge on those things. She looked sort of put-out too, so he guessed her day wasn't going any better than Meredith Grey's. He stood there for a moment, trying to decide whether to go in.

He'd acquiesced to Meredith that he would participate in her silly scheme to win Derek back, but he didn't owe the intern anything and he'd only agreed so she would stop getting snot all over him. Crying was damned unattractive. He didn't particularly care if Derek and Addison got back together or not, since it didn't seem to have much of an impact on his life anyway. Although, it had been a long day and Addison was here, looking hot, so what harm could a little nookie do?

She happened to look through the window as he was standing there, and she must have spotted him since she disappeared from view and the door opened a moment later. Mark found himself dragged into the exam room and pushed back against the table as Addison's hands yanked at the fabric of his scrub top. "Why, hello there," he grinned at her. "It's so nice to see you too. What a lovely day, isn't it?"

Addison groaned, dropping her hands from his shirt as she sighed in exasperation. "Come on, Mark, it's been a horrible day and I just need some sex. I'm really not in the mood for cute banter right now."

"But, cute banter is what I do best! Well, apart from my extensive sexual prowess, of course."

He pushed the hair off her face, trying to decide if he should kiss her or let Addison do the honors. She wanted sex, he could give her that and it would have the added benefit of increasing his social capital, since Meredith would think he did her a favor.

"It's been... I had to tell Derek our marriage ended because I cheated on him and every time I pass her in the hallways, Meredith looks at me like she's the roadkill I had stuffed and mounted after I flew into town on my broomstick."

Mark kissed her then, small biting kisses, and he could feel the frustration that had built in her body. Nobody but Derek got her this wound up only to leave it, allowing someone else to do the untangling. Back in New York, back when she was Derek's hot and lonely wife, Mark had wanted Addison badly. The luster had passed, but she was still a good time in the sack. And, possibly on the exam table.

Shoving his hands in underneath her skirt, Mark pulled her panties down as he turned them around. He pushed her skirt up at the same time as he hoisted Addison up on the table, pushing her down none too gently. Raising the stirrups, he stuck her feet into them and grinned, "Now, we're going to play doctor."

Addison raised an eyebrow, looking at him in that what-the-fuck way she did when she thought he was being too ridiculous for words. She was always really hot when she was worked up and Mark hadn't seen her this agitated since New York. The best sex was always a result of when she was angry or upset about something Derek had done, or hadn't done. Today's encounter with her ex must have been a doozy.

"I got poison oak once, because of you." She sighed and reached her arms out toward him, trying to grab hold of his clothing as he bent over to undo the buttons on her blouse. "I had to pee out in the woods and got the worst case of poison oak you'd ever see, right there." She pointed below her waist. "The blisters were huge, and it itched like a bitch too."

"Well, this is sexy." Mark rolled his eyes, trying not to think about the mental picture Addison's story had conjured up. "Apart from the fact that I have no idea how I gave you poison oak when I was clear back in New York, your talk about big blisters isn't exactly turning me on."

She looked amazing, though. Her long legs up in the stirrups, shirt open, skirt bunched above her hips and still wearing her white coat. He pulled up a stool and sat down, "Well, let's have a look then." Massaging her calves, he waited for Addison to relax her thighs. "See if there's any scarring that needs my expertise."

"Mark! For the love of--" He could feel her wave her arms to emphasize her frustration, even if he wasn't looking at her. Well, not that part of her. "I want sex, not a pap smear from a guy who hasn't done one in fifteen years!"

"So, was it Derek who made you give up the full Brazilian to fit in with his new image of flannel and the woodsy outdoors, or is this the Addison version of letting yourself go?"

Addison groaned, covering her face with one of her hands. "You're an idiot and don't talk about Derek. Sex is supposed to make me forget I'm stuck in this hellhole!"

"I think it's cute. I thought you were a fake redhead and that's why you went with a bald look." So, he might be purposely riling her up. Angry sex was always good and an incensed Addison was no less than mindblowing in bed. Or, out of it as the case might be. "The butterfly pattern is a nice touch. Stylish and kind of a turn-on."

"As happy as I am that my pubic hair is getting the Mark Sloan seal of approval, do you think we could have sex sometime soon?"

He kissed the inside of her thigh, tracing his fingertips lightly across the skin. Addison had such soft, silky skin and he'd always wondered what it'd feel like to the touch. Then one night, as Mark hit on her more out of habit than any real hope of scoring, she actually let him know how it felt as they did the horizontal salsa on Derek's favorite sheets. Making sure his breath would tickle across her nerve endings, he applied as professional a touch as he could manage in spreading her open.

"You'll be happy to hear that you're not covered in pox scars." Mark grinned in response to the obscene hand gesture she made in his direction. "You do, however, have a birthmark here. I could have that removed for you."

Addison sighed loudly and fell back against the table. "It's been a day from hell, I'm carrying around an unbelievable load of tension. I need sex and you're more interested in staring at my girly parts than in actually fucking. What is wrong with you?!"

"All right, hold your horses." Mark gave in and offered her a long, broad tongued lick which made her breathing catch with surprise. "How's that? I might get to thinking you only like me for my sexy body instead of my sparkling personality. That would absolutely crush me. You know what a shy and sensitive guy I am."

Bending back down to nuzzle her, he made sure the bridge of his nose bumped against her clit frequently as he hummed against her flesh. She was actually pretty damn delicious. Not that Mark ever intended to tell her that, Addison Montgomery didn't need to know he liked going down on her. She called him a manwhore, but she was pretty conceited herself, sexually.

"Yesss, that's much better use of your tongue than all that talk." Her hand landed on his head, not guiding, not yet. "Less talk, more sex."

"Yes, ma'am. Whatever you say." He raised his head from between her legs to smirk at her, laughing to himself as she shoved his head back down. He blew lightly against her exposed skin before settling his mouth over her clit. There was something about going down on Addison while Derek was in the hospital on the floor above, that was both really wrong and a hell of a turn-on at the same time. Kind of like doing her in their marital bed, that had been insanely hot.

"Yeah, there you go. Just like that." She sighed loudly, and Mark tried not to groan. She shouldn't be sighing. She should be having wild, screaming orgasms that would wake the entire hospital. "Honestly, I feel bad for him, but he can't expect me to just forget about the past few months. Even if he can't remember it, he was downright cruel toward me and that doesn't go away because he bumped his head."

"I thought you were the one who wanted to have sex," Mark complained, pulling back and noting Addison's frustrated expression with some level of satisfaction. "This isn't going to work if you keep complaining about Derek, not to mention it's not so good for a guy's ego."

Addison glared at him. "You're the one who's always bragging about how you're such a stud in the sack. If you just keep your mouth shut and do your job, your fragile ego will be just fine."

Fine. She wanted him to scratch an itch. He could scratch. Placing one hand on top of her butterfly, he began a rhythmic two-fingered massage with the other. It wasn't like she was terribly complex. Most women didn't know their bodies well enough to have a good vaginal orgasm and seemed to treat their clits like some sort of stick shift to happiness and that was just no way to go about pleasure, even if it worked well enough for a quick fix... if you weren't too picky about quality.

Mark felt like she took him for granted, expected him to please her and he wasn't used to being under-appreciated. Even if he was a manwhore, he was top of the line and maybe Addison hadn't had enough experience to realize what a damn good lay he was? That was a much more acceptable explanation than that she actually preferred her ex-husband. Sinking his fingers into her, marveling at the heat and the pressure, and the coo of approval coming from Addison, Mark decided it had to suck to be Derek.

"Oh, God, I needed this," Addison groaned, shifting her hips slightly toward him. "I've been practically living at this damn hospital for three weeks and you wouldn't believe how fucking tense I am. A comatose ex-husband, who wakes up only to ask why you're divorced does not make for a very good day. Especially when you add in the fact that I haven't had sex in three weeks."

"Aw, you get cranky when you're not getting any?" Mark grinned and slid his fingers in deeper, eliciting a low moan from the back of Addison's throat. She was warm and wet against his hand and he knew her body well enough to know which actions would bring these sounds from her, as well as the best ways to make her come. An orgasm would give him social capital from Addison as well, so he was doing splendid on that front today. "Don't you worry your pretty little head. Dr. McSteamy is here and he'll make you all better with his mad skills."

"You're such an idiot and I still haven't had an orgasm." She propped herself up onto her elbows and fixed him with a stern glare He tapped lightly against her g-spot, causing Addison's thighs to clench up and her breathing to become heavier as she fell back onto the table. Her cheeks and chest were flushed and he wondered just how loudly he could make her scream.

Then, she suddenly shuddered, her muscles clenching around his fingers and she said, "Thank you. That was nice."

What the hell? That was not an orgasm! Damn woman. She must have done it on purpose. "Oh, you did not just come!" This was... He was Mark Sloan and these things didn't happen to him! He made women scream in ecstasy, not sigh in relief. Not after a puny 3½-second orgasm.

"I did," she smiled, knowing just how much this was annoying him, no doubt. "It took the edge off nicely."

xxx

"Come on, where are they?" Derek muttered, swearing under his breath as he pulled open yet another dresser drawer to find it empty. Grated, he'd been in a coma for quite some time, but he had to have some clothes around here somewhere. If nothing else, he could sneak into a supply closet and steal a pair of scrubs, but his own clothes would be better. Why didn't he have any here? Didn't anyone have faith that he would wake up?

Right now, though, his top priority was getting out of this hospital, and he didn't care if he had to do it in this stupid hospital gown with his bare ass hanging out for the world to see. He didn't know exactly where he was going to go, but away from here would be a good start. He needed to figure out how to deal with the fact that he was missing the last few years of his life, and especially that the love of his life had cheated on him with his traitorous bastard of a best friend.

"Derek? What are you doing?" He turned around to see the 12-year old standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips and a disapproving expression on her face. Just fantastic. He had enough to deal with right now without the tearful protestations of a woman he didn't know, but who was convinced that she was the love of his life. Honestly, what had he been thinking? He barely knew her, but her whiny voice annoyed him, and his taste in women was along the lines of tall, leggy redheads, not underdeveloped blondes.

"You could get me some clothes," he did his best to smile beseechingly, but it hurt and Derek wasn't sure it looked adorably pouty the way it should, "and get started on the paperwork to get me out of here."

"Out of here? You just woke up, after three weeks! You're not signing out AMA. You're just not. Seriously, Derek. Three weeks!"

Derek interrupted his search to study her for a second. What the hell was up with her weird speech pattern? She didn't have any authority to order him around -- she was a damn intern! Right now, he needed to think. He needed some peace and quiet to digest why his wife wasn't his wife. It was just too noisy and crowded here, with interns and nurses and that one very bossy resident. He couldn't think! So, Derek had to go home, to find his moment of clarity and to decide on... something.

Actually, he could use a stiff drink, so maybe he should find a bar instead? When your wife of 11 years fucked around on you that warranted getting plastered. Well, what Derek really needed was to beat that scumbag jackass to a pulp for touching Addison, but seeing how he was in Seattle, of all the godforsaken places on the planet, and clear across the continent from said jackass, that would have to wait.

"Derek! Are you even listening to me?"

He forced another smile, but it felt more like a grimace and from the look on her face, he wasn't making much headway in his case to get out of here. "I get that you're concerned for my well-being, but really, I'm fine. I'm a doctor, I know these things and I've looked at my chart. There's nothing pressing to keep me here and honestly, I'd rather be elsewhere right now."

"Derek, you have a brain injury! You almost died, and you can't just walk out of here and expect that you're going to be okay!"

Her high-pitched voice was starting to get on his nerves and she was reminding him of an annoying little mosquito buzzing around the room. He had more important things on his mind than a skinny intern with the ridiculous idea that she was his soulmate. The love of his life had slept with his best friend and that was more than enough for him to deal with right now.

"Look, I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings, but I really don't have time for this right now," he snapped at her, finally losing his temper. "I have my own issues to deal with and I'm sorry if I led you on, but you're really not my type. So please, give up on the soulmates thing and let me deal with the fact that my wife screwed my best friend and I have no idea how it happened."

"You're still not leaving the hospital until you've been cleared." She crossed her arms and tried to look stern. "If you won't listen to me, then I'm going to call Addison and tell her you're planning on leaving. She's not going to like that too much."

"Since she's telling me we're divorced, I don't think she has a say in what I do anymore." He really couldn't grasp Addison cheating on him. They were Derek-and-Addison! How was he supposed to live in a world where his wife had betrayed him? They may have had difficulties, but what couple didn't and he'd expected her to tell him if she was unhappy. Not sleep with Mark!

"I'm paging Addison. You're clearly not fit to make rational decisions yet and she is still listed as your next of kin. Even though you divorced her... because you don't love her anymore." The intern stomped out of the room and Derek half-expected her to slam the door as part of her drama queen act in a traveling freakshow.

What kind of hospital was this anyway? No wonder he had no clothes. Nobody expected him to survive because they were all a bunch of incompetent fools! To top it all off, he was feeling a distinct draft on his backside from the flimsy gown. With a sigh, he sat down on the edge of the bed.

Derek didn't know if he had it in him to go another round with Addison. She seemed sad and tired and he just couldn't look at her, knowing what she did, or what he did for that matter. They were divorced! How could they be divorced? Sure, it made him nauseous to think of her, of his wife, with some other man and not just any man, but Mark! But, it also made Derek feel sick to think that Addison wasn't his Addison and he no longer had any family.

How does a man cope with that? He had no answers and he ached all over, but mostly in the head. It was too much. When he'd married Addison, Derek had expected to have a family with her, to build a life together and to die in her arms when he was 110. Then, he found himself waking up from a coma and suddenly, he had nothing at all. Well, except an intern fangirl, whose panties he apparently stole in a fit of insanity.

"All right, Derek, do you want to tell me what's going on here?" Addison was back, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips with the 'I'm about to kick your ass' expression on her face. The intern had returned as well, but Derek paid no attention to her. He looked away, staring at the dresser across the room, but he could still feel his wife's eyes on him. His ex-wife, he reminded himself. Addison wasn't his family anymore.

"Why didn't you bring me any clothes?" Derek complained, turning back to face her as he threw his hands up in the air. "This hospital gown is really uncomfortable and drafty, and did you think I was going to die? That's nice that you had so little faith in me. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside."

"Derek, what are you talking about?" Addison gave an exasperated sigh as she entered the room and made her way over to the bed, pulling the blankets back. "Get back in the bed before you make yourself sick. You just regained consciousness today and you're not going to heal any faster if you get yourself worked up over something ridiculous."

"I wouldn't exactly call my wife screwing my best friend ridiculous," he snapped, immediately feeling guilty at the expression of sadness and guilt that washed over Addison's face. Why did he feel bad about this? She'd made him feel worse than he'd ever thought possible, had betrayed him in the ultimate way. What was wrong with him that he still cared about her feelings?

"Yes, I am Satan. Now, get back in bed, Derek." She patted the mattress with her naked hand. The rings had come off. His rings, the ones he'd put on her finger when vowing to cherish her until death did them part.

"You're Satan?" The world had turned very confusing while Derek was taking his involuntary nap.

"You'd better believe it, babe -- everywhere, all the time." Addison leaned with her hip against the bed, crossing her arms and smiled a small, sardonic kind of smile. "You know that you can't be alone after a surgery like the one you've had, so you really can't leave. That damn trailer of yours is no place for a convalescent."

"T-trailer?" Did he live in a trailer park? Was that what had happened to him after Addison's infidelity, he's gone insane? Had he tried to commit suicide by driving in front of a truck?

"You insist on living in a trailer, in the middle of nowhere, but I suppose Meredith Grey over there," she nodded toward the door where Derek could see the intern hovering uncertainly, "would let you recover at her house and in her bed. She is your girlfriend, after all."

"You could, stay at my house, but only once you're officially released by Dr. Crawford."

He stared at the intern in horror. "This is a joke, right?" He laughed, a flat sound even to his own ears, desperately turning toward Addison. "You're getting back at me for something I've done. I get it and I'm sorry, even if I can't remember what it was. You can stop now."

"Derek, just get in the damn bed and stop being such a pain in the ass." Addison crossed her arms and glared at him, looking annoyed and kind of hot. They'd always had their best sex while bickering like this, but somehow Derek didn't think that would be happening at this time. "Are you going to do this quietly, or am I going to have to call someone to wrestle you down?"

He grudgingly climbed back into bed, feeling too tired both physically and emotionally to keep arguing his point. Obviously the world had gone crazy in the time he was asleep, and from the sound of it, he had too, seeing as he'd let the love of his life get away from him. What was wrong with them? Why hadn't they tried harder?

"Oh, Derek." Addison sat beside him on the bed, looking so sad as she tucked the blankets in around him and covered his hand with hers. "I know this isn't easy for you, but it'll get better. You have to give yourself time to adjust to everything that's happened."

He looked away, not wanting to see how sad and wistful she looked. He didn't want to see Addison at all, not right now. Everything wasn't going to be all right and how was he supposed to adjust to the fact that he'd lost his wife and couldn't even remember how it had happened? "Don't give me platitudes, Addison. We both know it's not going to be fine, so let's at least be honest and admit that the situation is totally fucked up."

She stiffened. "You chose this, Derek. You wanted a divorce and have long since moved on. Our marriage is over." She suddenly turned toward the intern, "That means you can stop looking at me like I stole your favorite toy. I'm not going to rob you of your McDreamy."

McDreamy...? Never mind. He wasn't going to ask. They'd only give him some crazy answer which would make the world seem even more off-kilter. He was not a stealer of panties and he didn't approve of the notion that he'd had extramarital, uh, relations when his wife was ten feet away, or at all. That was just cruel and pedestrian and dirty, but mostly just cruel. Derek couldn't see himself as that man, didn't want to be that man. He wanted to beat up Mark for putting him in this situation.

"It's going to be okay, Derek," the intern assured him, coming over to the bed and taking his hand in hers. "You're going to get better and get out of here, and even if you don't remember us, we can start again. Be friends."

He jerked his hand out of hers, feeling annoyed at how dense she was. What did it take to get her to understand he didn't want her or whatever relationship they'd had? He'd loved Addison and having this delusional intern butting into his business with his wife wasn't making things any easier.

"How do you know that? I don't even know you!" Her face started to crumple, but he couldn't be concerned with that right now, not when he had to talk to his wife and figure out what had gone wrong with their marriage. He didn't have time to waste on consoling Little Girl Lost.

"Goddammit, Derek, will you give it a rest?" Addison snapped at him, looking like she was about two seconds away from losing her temper. "If you don't want to be with Meredith, then don't be with her. I really don't care. I fucked up, you fucked up, and sometimes marriages just fail. You were the the one who said we aren't Addison-and-Derek anymore. You were the one who ran away across the country without so much as a goodbye. I know you don't remember doing it, but you know what? I don't care!"

Why was she being so obstinate? True, cheating on her with another woman and stealing said woman's panties wasn't exactly dreamy, but she'd made mistakes too. "Well, none of that would have happened if you hadn't fucked my best friend!"

"Oh, for the love of--"

"You might want to tone down the rhetoric," Mark's head appeared in the doorway, "unless you want the Chief to berate you for turning his hospital into the Jerry Springer Show."

Mark. Mark was here. Why was he here? Never mind. It didn't matter. What mattered was Derek putting his hand around the bastard's throat and squeezing until his tonsils popped out. Yes, that would make the world a better place.

"Derek...?" He shoved the intern out of his way and she fell into Addison's arms in a tangle of bony protrusions. "Derek, what are you doing?!"

He was going to kill Mark, the sociopathic homewrecker, that was what he was doing. Pushing his IV pole ahead of him, he reached the door and pulled it open. "Mark!" he yelled down the hallway, making random people turn to stare at him.

The other man turned around and sauntered back toward him. "You remember me," he smirked.

"Of course I remember you, you bastard!" Grabbing the first available thing, namely the IV pole he was holding onto, Derek swung it at the asshole who'd stolen his wife.

Mark ducked just in time to avoid the pole hitting his head, but Derek managed to get a good hit on his shoulder on the second swing. "You screwed my wife! Give me one good reason why I shouldn't shove this pole up your ass right now!"

"Ow!" Mark rubbed his shoulder as he stepped back from yet another swing from the IV pole. "Maybe if you'd been there for Addison, she wouldn't have had to look elsewhere. You treated her like shit, Derek, and then you did it again when she came after you to Seattle. You don't deserve a woman like her, so don't get all self-righteous and act like you're the injured party."

Derek tried again to hit him, but instead sent a pile of charts from the nurse's station crashing to the floor. The accident must have affected his coordination, since he couldn't seem to wipe the smirk off of his ex-best friend's face like he wanted to, and why was the pole so heavy? Had he become a complete weakling while he was in that coma?

"Derek, stop being childish." Addison had appeared in the hall, her hands on her hips again as she gave him the look she reserved for when he'd done something especially asinine. "You're making an idiot out of yourself, not to mention giving the entire staff a view of your ass."

He heard her talking, but the words weren't sinking in. All that mattered was kicking Mark's ass and giving him what he deserved for what he'd done, ruining Derek's life. "I'm going to kill you!" He swung again, managing to hit the other man in the hip this time and he saw to his satisfaction that Mark was looking a lot less amused and a lot more pissed off.

"If you hadn't been such a neglectful moron, she wouldn't have looked elsewhere!" Mark retorted, and Derek felt a rush of shame that he quickly pushed away and let the anger take over again. Who the hell was Mark to talk about treating women badly? He showed no respect for others, be they interns, his best friend, or the women he screwed. As far as Derek knew, Mark had never been anything but disdainful of Addison's specialty or her skills.

"You gave me a nose job, you asshole!" This was too much to take in and he was going to show Mark what happened to shitty, wife-stealing bastards with no sense of loyalty whatsoever. He grabbed the pole firmly, swung as hard as he could, and passed out.


	7. Chapter 7

"I heard you went jousting the other day." Nancy appeared in the doorway and Derek almost smiled, before he remembered that he looked hideous and that he was angry with her, and every other woman on the planet. "Although, I guess it can't be called that, since there weren't horses involved. Just two jackasses."

"Did my wife tell you that?" Addison hadn't really been around for a few days and wondering where she was holed up, and if Mark was with her, wasn't doing anything for his disposition to be cordial.

"No, it was a cute boy doctor. He said you swooned in Mark's arms, which I'm sure was a homoerotic moment worthy to behold."

Derek scowled at her, not caring for once that he looked like Frankenstein's monster. Nancy looked far more amused than she deserved to be, and he didn't appreciate her referring to Karev as 'cute.' The intern had been much more subdued since the day Addison ordered him out of the room, but he still had this smug expression that Derek wanted to smack off his face. "Why do I get the feeling you're finding this funny?"

His sister started to laugh and Derek felt like he was nine years old again. "Come on, Derek." Being the only boy, with four sisters, meant that he spent a good chunk of his childhood being giggled at by girls. "You can't tell me you don't see the humor in that."

Oh yes, it was just a barrel of laughs that he'd lost consciousness and happened to be caught by his morally deprived former best friend. Almost as funny as the love of his life cheating on him with said ex-best friend, really. None of which was quite as hilarious as the thought of Mark and Addison screwing each other's brains out right now, while he was still stuck in the hospital being visited by his sister, who had flown three thousand miles to make fun of him.

"I'm told you're grumpy and uncooperative with your physiotherapist." Nancy moved into the room. "How are you doing, Derek?"

She tenderly touched his face, as if familiarizing herself with it and to his utter horror, Derek felt the sting of tears. He resented how long it had taken her to get here, but no one had showed this level of concern for him. This was what he'd been missing, family. Addison had all but abandoned him and maybe that was her right, their marriage had been troubled and the divorce seemed less than amicable, if O'Malley and the snippets of overheard conversations were to be trusted.

"I'm lonely." Derek choked on the word, didn't want to confess how lost and scared he felt, but then Nancy hugged him and he couldn't quite believe how good that human contact felt. This was what he'd needed, for someone to put her arms around him for a moment and offer some wordless comfort.

"We'll go back East and you'll have the whole family vying for your attention while you recuperate. We've all missed you so much, you have no idea! Thanksgiving and Christmas weren't the same without you there. For one, you're our designated turkey carver!"

Say, what? Derek shook his head, certain he'd misunderstood her. "Excuse me?" He wasn't leaving Seattle.

Nancy seriously expected him to just give up his marriage and go back to New York, leaving his wife in the clutches of Mark Sloan? Derek Shepherd wasn't a quitter, it didn't matter if there had been a divorce and he hated Addison, Derek wasn't about to let Mark win so easily. She might be avoiding him, but that was going to change as soon as Derek was out of the hospital. He had to track her down and make her talk to him, so he could wrap his head around what had gone so wrong, and Derek couldn't do that if she was on the other side of the continent.

"Mom's got a room ready for you and everything," Nancy continued, looking so honestly happy that he felt a tiny bit bad about disappointing her when he told her that he wouldn't come. Lying here, he'd missed his family, but not to the point where he was going to just give up on... whatever his life would be now. "And the kids can't wait to see their Uncle Derek."

He couldn't believe that plans had already been made, that he hadn't even been consulted about this. No one had asked his opinion, or told him what was going on. Instead they'd snuck around behind his back, deciding his life for him without even having the courtesy of informing him. What hurt most was the realization that Addison had been part of it. She held his medical proxy, so she would have been the one to give the deciding vote. How could she do this to him?

"I'm not going." Derek set his jaw and nodded his head hard for emphasis, immediately wishing he hadn't. He was going to have a bitch of a headache before long, although he suspected he would anyhow, with the inevitable argument that was about to take place.

Nancy looked at him, clearly as unamused as he felt himself. "Derek, you're a brain surgeon. You know better than anyone that a trailer isn't the place for anyone in your condition. Where did you plan on staying? With your girlfriend... or with Addison?" He looked away, not wanting her to see that he'd hoped that his recovery time would be spent trying to get a handle on what had happened with Addison, but as usual, Nancy didn't give him any reprieve. "She's living in a hotel, Derek. You wanted her to stay out here, but you didn't provide a home for her."

The whole notion of living in a trailer went a little beyond him still and requiring Addison to live in one seemed childish, even if she deserved to wear a scarlet letter for cheating on him. That was why they had to talk, sort out their issues, so Derek could pick up the shambles of his life. Besides, since when had Addison started to run away from awkward conversations? Was she in a relationship with Mark and didn't want to tell him? Was that why he was getting shipped off to New York with Nancy, so he wouldn't impose on her happily ever after?

"I don't care," he argued, matching his sister's gaze. He and Nancy had had many staring contests back when they were kids, actual contests where the loser had to make the winner's bed for a week. They'd always been pretty evenly matched, but Derek was going to win this one if it was the last thing he did. "I'm not going to New York and the intern said I could stay with her."

Nancy looked frustrated, which felt good since now she knew how he was feeling. Derek knew this was childish of him, but he couldn't believe that Nancy expected him to just give up like that. She had always been close with Addison and he couldn't grasp why Nancy wasn't telling him off for letting all of this happen in the first place. Maybe she was so angry with Addison that she thought taking him away from her was the best course of action? That was more thoughtful, but still the complete opposite of what he wanted, and what he needed.

"You're telling me that you want to live with the slutty intern whom you can't remember?" Nancy was looking at him like she was trying to assess just how much brain damage he had and Derek would have laughed if it hadn't been such a bad idea. 'Slutty intern' was just so Nancy and it felt good to see that at least one person in his life hadn't changed.

"I will if I have to," Derek insisted, crossing his arms and setting his jaw. He wasn't bluffing about this. Leaving Seattle wasn't an option, and if that meant putting up with the too-skinny intern and her dirty panties, then so be it. As long as he was in the same city as Addison, he could work on her and get her to talk to him. He could be very persistent with the right motivation, and if the love of his life wasn't the impetus he needed, then he didn't know what was. "I don't care if I have to check into the Y. I don't care what you say, I'm not going back East with you."

Nancy sighed, and sat down in the chair by the bed, looking very tired. She must have caught the first flight out of New York and he felt a bit bad for her, although he still wanted to know what had taken her so long to get here. Apparently he hadn't made many friends while he'd been in Seattle, and Addison was hiding from him, leaving him with only the crazy interns for company.

xxx

"You know, the guy is seriously overrated." Alex smirked at Cristina's words, watching her cast a scornful look at Derek Shepherd, who was checking out his reflection in the glass window in front of his room, his hospital gown tied loosely in the back. "Way too conceited, not to mention the hairy ass."

"Don't remind me." Alex shuddered, turning around so his back was to the guy. The music was still playing on the other end of the line, some oldies shit that was going to be stuck in his head for hours. "I'm still having nightmares about it. I know more about Shepherd's anatomy than I ever wanted to."

"Someone sounds bitter about losing the pool." Cristina was the one smirking now, looking positively gleeful as she scribbled a note in a patient's chart before replacing it on the cart. "Is it true he cried when he saw the nose job Sloan did on him? You could have made up your losses by selling tickets."

Alex rolled his eyes and pretended to be absorbed in his phone call, which took considerable acting skill considering that he'd been doing this for hours. Sloan treated him more like a personal assistant than a surgical intern and Alex had yet to learn anything substantial about plastics. The guy was an arrogant ass, which wasn't so surprising considering that he was Addison Montgomery's ex or fuck buddy, or whatever the hell they were. Pompous egomaniacs were just her type.

"Oh, check him out now." Cristina gave a little snort of laughter as she stared at Shepherd, who was now smiling into the window, gazing dreamily at himself. "What do you want to bet he's practicing for the next time he sees Montgomery? There's still time to get in on the pool for when she takes him back."

He shifted uneasily. Addison was... She probably would take the asswipe back and none of them needed to be put through that again. Alex didn't see any real way around that outcome, though, unless the other asswipe decided to put some sort of official status onto whatever it was they had going on. She could do much better than either one of them, if she could just get past her tendency to spread her legs for eye candy.

"She won't take him back." O'Malley reached for a pen and flipped his pink gynie chart open right in front of Alex's face.

"Because she now has the O'Malley option?" Cristina smirked. "I don't think it's a love match, despite your preening like a peacock all week."

After tearing into him for something he hadn't even done, Addison had dropped Alex from her service. He was better off that way, not being interested in doing vaginas full-time, but having George O'Malley succeed him and getting in on really cool surgeries sucked some major ass. To top it all off, the Queen of Obstetrics hadn't spoken to him beyond the occasional hello in the stairways, despite that Alex had apologized for the thing he didn't even do in the first place.

"The people who're sleeping with attendings to gain special favors seem awfully threatened by my simple compliment."

Cristina turned to look at Alex. "You're sleeping with Montgomery?" She sounded equal measures impressed and incredulous at the idea. "You've joined the ranks of the -eamies?"

He glared back at Yang and then at O'Malley who'd just gone from annoying to seriously pissing him off. George was sleeping with a resident, for one, so he had no room to talk in regards to screwing the higher-ups and Alex hadn't been blind to O'Malley's blatant ass-kissing as of late. He had no idea why Bambi thought he even stood a shot with Addison. O'Malley was afraid of his own shadow and he'd almost wet his pants when Alex had gotten reamed out. He'd probably break down completely if he got his own tongue-lashing from Addison.

"You're screwing my wife?!" Oh, joy. The ghoul and his IV pole was drawing closer to the nurse's station.

Alex really wanted to say that he must be fucking an imaginary woman then, since Shepherd had no wife. It would have been satisfying to bite back, but he'd promised Addison that he wouldn't taunt her ex and he didn't relish the thought of her tearing him a new one. He also wasn't going to make her drop everything and come down here to deal with Shepherd after he'd been goaded into a hissy fit. George and Cristina attempting to back away from him, as if they expected another round of the Battle of the IV Pole didn't give Alex much hope for a positive outcome, though.

"Dude, you look kind of tired. Maybe you should go back to your room and lie down for a while?" Shepherd's face darkened and Alex sighed. All right, so it hadn't been the smartest thing to say, but he wasn't so hot at the whole bedside manner thing. He was a lot better at cutting people open than he was at holding their hands. Although, he hadn't been doing much cutting as of late, with being off Addison's service and Sloan using him as his own personal errand boy.

He missed neonatal, which surprised him, considering that Alex had never aspired to be part of the vagina squad and he hadn't exactly started out all warm and fuzzy with Addison. She could be tough as nails and he'd hated her a lot of the time, but she was a pretty damn good surgeon and Alex had learned a lot. He'd even started to respect her, before she'd gone all mushy-eyed when Shepherd smiled at her. No matter how good a surgeon she might be, taking back her ex after all the shit he'd pulled was just insipid.

"You're Addison's rebound fuck and you treated me like crap because you're jealous." Shepherd's voice was level, but there was a look in his eyes that Alex didn't like. He'd always suspected the guy had a mean streak, and with frontal lobe damage and reduced impulse control, he wasn't very apt to be pleasant.

"I'm just about the only intern in this damn hospital who isn't sleeping with the brass!" It was the one thing Alex had, everything he'd come by had been earned honestly. He'd been at Addison's mercy as punishment for sticking her with a lawsuit and he'd earned his dues on her service. He'd make a good neonatal surgeon, and that had nothing to do with trying to get into Addison's pants. It was enough to try to please the woman professionally -- anything less than your all and she'd come down on you like a ton of bricks.

"Actually, I'm not sleeping with anyone at all." Everybody turned to look at George. "Callie dumped me. I've tried to tell her than I'm done with being the eggs, but she just won't listen."

"You're done with being the eggs?" Cristina repeated, giving O'Malley her 'what the fuck?' expression. "I didn't know you and Torres had broken up, but that explains why you've been trying to get Montgomery's milk for free lately."

"You've been hitting on Addison?" Shepherd turned his attention to George, that unpleasant look in his eyes intensifying as O'Malley shrank back. "Is that why you were trying to sell me on that skinny intern last week and telling me about how I stole her panties, because you wanted me out of the way? I don't know what your designs are, O'Malley, but you'd better leave my wife out of them, do you understand?"

Alex turned to George, trying to figure out whether he wanted to laugh or tear into him before Shepherd got the chance to bash his head in. The guy had let Alex take the fall for the panty-blabbing, just stood there while Addison had reamed him out and kicked him off her service. Even worse, O'Malley had taken Alex's place in neonatal and accused him of fucking an attending to get ahead. That was about as low as you could get, and Alex had no respect for cowards.

"I am going to make venison out of you, Bambi."

xxx

"I knew my brother was stubborn, but this is absolutely ridiculous." Nancy rubbed her face and sighed, closing her eyes as she sank back against the sofa. Addison felt for her, since Derek could make any sane woman want to tear her hair out when he got into one of his obstinate moods, but she wished that they could talk about something different. She'd spent the last week avoiding her ex-husband, and hearing his sister talk about him wasn't doing much for her mental health.

Addison leaned back in her chair, grateful for a few moments of silence. Nancy was like a sister to her, and she was grateful that Derek's family didn't hate her for what she'd done, but talking about her ex was painful, and the topic of the divorce was bound to come up. There hadn't been much discussion about that, since Derek's accident had occurred the night after their marriage was dissolved, but the probing was inevitable, and Addison wanted to put it off for as long as she could.

"He said he'd stay at the Y if he had to. Can you imagine Derek at the Y?" Nancy opened her eyes and grinned at Addison. "He mentioned the slutty intern too, but he seemed more excited about the Y."

She tried to laugh, she really did, but the sound came out as a gurgled sob. Meredith would take Derek in and then they'd live happily ever after, Addison had known that before she even signed the divorce settlement, but she wasn't prepared for the tidal wave of emotion that hit her at the prospect of what life in Seattle would be like when Derek's romance with Meredith rekindled.

Nancy's eyes widened. "Oh, Addie." She was gathered into the other woman's arms and suddenly realized that she couldn't remember the last time she'd been hugged, or really been the recipient of any heartfelt display of affection. Mark wanted sex, Derek had just been going through the motions, leaving the obligatory peck on her cheek as he rushed by and the few friends she had at Seattle Grace weren't the huggy, cuddly sort.

Addison swallowed hard, but her breathing wasn't getting any steadier and she could feel the tears sliding down her nose and splashing onto Nancy's shirt. She hadn't had a chance to mourn the end of her marriage, or let herself think about what her life would be like without Derek in it. It hurt to think of him going back to New York without her, but to think of watching him and Meredith together, after the intern had nursed him back to health, wasn't any better.

With a little effort, she was able to stop crying, and she gave Nancy a shaky smile as she reached for a tissue. "I hope I didn't get anything on your clothes," she told the other woman, half joking and half worried that she really had. Although if it was the latter, she told herself, she could always sneak it in with Mark's dry cleaning and Karev would take care of it.

Nancy examined her shirt, then shook her head at Addison. "Nope, no nasal discharge here. You're saved from a very expensive dry cleaning bill." Her voice was teasing and her eyes dancing with mischief, but then her smile faded. "Are you holding up okay, Addie? Derek says he hasn't seen you in almost a week."

She really didn't want to tell Nancy that she'd stayed with Mark after Derek left and that was the last piece of news he'd gotten before he drove off and got intimate with an 18-wheeler. He'd been angry and Derek didn't have the best judgment when he was upset -- he tended to yell and wave his arms and dear God, how was Addison to tell his sister that she was partially responsible for that accident? That her own poor judgment was equally to blame for Derek's current condition.

"It's... he's different, but still more like the Derek I married than he's been in a long time and it's just..." She swallowed, looking around at nothing. "I still love him." Her heart was pounding and she felt a little nauseous. "I still love him and I can't go through all of this again."

Her voice quivered on the last word and her vision was starting to go blurry again. She sighed and sank forward, resting her elbows on her knees. Everything she'd been pushing back for the last four weeks was rushing back, threatening to overwhelm her. She wasn't ready to deal with any of it, and even the thought of trying was too exhausting for words.

"Take it easy, okay, Addie?" Nancy's voice was concerned, and Addison felt the other woman's hands on her arms, steadying her. "Take a few deep breaths, okay? You have to take care of yourself, and something tells me you haven't been doing much of that lately."

Addison nodded and drew a few breaths before lifting her head, feeling a little better, but not much. What she really needed was for this to not have happened, but since that wasn't feasible, she'd have to make do with the next best thing. The trouble was, she had no idea what that was.

Nancy was about to say something more when the door banged open and O'Malley came barging in, flushed and out of breath. He shut the door and immediately looked more frightened upon seeing that Addison and Nancy were sitting there, Nancy's hand still on Addison's arm and both of them looking up at him.

"Dr. Montgomery! Dr., um..." He cast his eyes around, reminding Addison of a deer caught in the headlights. "You're a doctor, aren't you? Unless you're a friend of Dr. Montgomery's, although you could be a doctor and still her friend, there's that too." He paused as if to take stock of them. "Or a patient, but you don't look very pregnant. Not that you'd have to be, you could just have another medical complication, like hemorrhoids and that would explain the pinched expression on your face."

"O'Malley! Shut up." Nancy looked honestly amused by the fidgeting, but Addison's nerves were raw. "Is there a problem with a patient?"

Pressing his nose against the glass of the porthole window in the door, O'Malley checked in both directions, before turning back to them. She wasn't sure from whom he was hiding, but Addison wasn't going to ask, not wanting to know about Meredith's latest crisis. It had been relatively quiet on that front in the past week and Addison wasn't about to stir anything up.

"I think Dr. Shepherd is a pig."

Nancy burst out laughing.

"Excuse me?" She'd been angry about Karev's behavior and now O'Malley called Derek a pig. What the hell was wrong with the interns at this hospital? "I know Derek has been a handful lately, but there's no need to call him names."

"Oh, not that kind of pig, I meant the kind with four legs that goes 'oink.' Not a pig-pig," O'Malley babbled frantically, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead. He looked like he was about to die of fright, perhaps for good reason. Addison had a short temper and no time to console frightened little interns who meddled with other people's personal lives. "It's in the breakfast, I mean. Chickens lay eggs and those are nice and all, but the pig has to give everything if there's going to be any ham on the plate."

"What?" O'Malley opened his mouth, seemingly to explain, but Addison decided that she didn't want to know. She had enough to deal with as it was, and she didn't know why she'd let the intern go on for as long as he had. "O'Malley, if you have a point, please get to it. If there's no point, then please, get the hell out of here!"

"It's just that the pig makes the ultimate sacrifice, you know?" the intern tried to explain, his hands gesturing futilely in front of him. "You can't get more committed than that, and that's just like Dr. Shepherd. He's the pig in the relationship."

Addison barely restrained herself from throttling him. Apparently it was too much to ask to be able to have a moment alone in her office to pull herself together, without having Bailey's interns stopping by to tell her about the epic love story of Derek and Meredith. Maybe she should be the one to think of relocating, if Derek was going to stay in Seattle and live happily ever after with Meredith Grey. A person could only punish herself so much, and Addison had just about reached her limit.


End file.
